Bless your heart, bitch

Southerners have this reputation for being somewhat hypocritical. Always nice and sweet to your face but talking smack behind your back. That's 100% not true.

Southerners have no problem expressing direct disapproval. They just do it nicely. Listen and learn how it's done:

Every time you feel the urge to say something really mean about someone... don't fight it. Indulge it. Just remember to add a "Bless your heart" to whatever it is that you are saying. As in:

Bless his heart, he is the stupidest, most self-centered, self-important mother fucker I have met in my entire life.

See. Nasty but oh-so-sweet.

I LOVE THE SOUTH.

How to {Learn} Bulgarian

One of my favorite things about Bulgarians is the way we speak. No, I don't mean the sound of our language. It's our liberal use of proverbs that I'm referring to.

Obviously, we use them more in casual conversations. I've also noticed that I personally use proverbs and sayings more when I'm speaking with my immediate family members: grandparents, mom and dad, my sister. I'm not sure why but for me using proverbs is a very intimate way of speaking. Because sayings are so idiosyncratic, regional, specific... when somebody gets your reference, that creates a sense of true understanding and belonging between the two of you. So so special.

I'm always trying to teach Kyle my favorite expressions and I thought it would be fun to start sharing some of these brief lessons with you too.



The other day I taught him "падат като круши", i.e. "dropping like pears". It is one of my favorite Bulgarian proverbs. It basically means "to fall hard". It's not the same as "dropping like flies". It's more literal than that. Kyle and I heard it while watching the Barcelona-Valencia soccer game. The Bulgarian commentator felt a lot of sympathy for the Valencia team. Towards the end of the second half when it was already obvious that Barcelona was winning the game, he tz-tz-tzuck-ed for a while, then said Valencia are were dropping like pears. Which they totally were.

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Photo by Matthew Veenker

My most sincere apologies

So, a few weeks ago I signed up for FormSpring. It's an anonymous micro-chat thing that a lot of bloggers use to answer frequently asked questions. I thought it could be fun to do it and I encouraged my readers here to submit questions.

You were so sweet and actually did. Aaawwww.

And, of course, I spaced out and completely forgot that I signed up for that!



SO SO SORRY. I'm an such an idiot!

Anyway, just wanted to issue a massive apology to those of you who took the time to think of questions. And I promise to answer them all TODAY and re-post here!

Photo by Sanfamedia.com

Gender roles in bi-cultural relationships

When our pipes froze, I started calling people for help. I called Angie whose dad has a maintenance company. I texted friends, I updated my Facebook status, searched the local Craigslist. Everyone and their mother knew that we needed a plumber. I was able to talk to about a thousand plumbers who gave me very consistent and straight-forward directions:

1. Find any vents and/or openings in your basement and make sure they are shut.
2. Find the central switch and turn your water off when you leave your house.
3. Turn your heat up.
4. Wait and listen for sounds of water leaking.

I did a great job of taking notes and communicating their directions but at no point in time did it occur to me that I would be involved in the actual implementation of the advice. I just sort of... well... assumed that my husband would go out into the garage, locate the appropriate tools and take care of vents, openings, central water switches, whatever.

That's exactly what he did. He covered the vents, found the switch, turned the water off when we left the house, turned it back on when we came back, turned the heat up, kept checking the faucets, etc. etc.

I can't remember the last time I felt as Bulgarian as I felt earlier today.


As many of you already know, I find Bulgarians quite curious on the gender equality front. Bulgarian women have been getting higher education degrees in "traditionally male" disciplines forever. Most women work outside of their home. Our legal framework is fairly progressive, granting a variety of provisions that make parenthood and child-care manageable. Women are still paid less, get promoted less quickly and are often harassed by their male colleagues but, generally, women do alright in the public sphere.

The domestic space is a bit different. Most Bulgarian families are quite traditional when it comes to the division of domestic labor. Women do most of the cooking, cleaning, childcare, family networking; men change light bulbs, work on the car, take out the trash and do other "manly" jobs. This angers me quite a bit as most of the time it's women who end up taking up most of the burden in household management. Yeah, sure, men do difficult jobs but those are jobs that happen only once in a while. Women cook, clean, etc. every day.

I see a lot of that in my own family (although my dad is a big helper) and friends. And I notice some of it on my own end... albeit our own dynamic is a bit different. Kyle and I are good about sharing all of our household responsibilities... BUT... I can't be bothered with "typically male" tasks: mowing our small lawn, changing light-bulbs, screwing in lose screws, and, today, closing off open vents.

I am very embarrassed by this and had a hard time deciding whether to write about this but I thought it'd give us an opportunity to have a good conversation about gender roles in our bi-cultural relationships. Based on little stories I've heard here and there, it seems to me that the division of household labor along gender lines can be a big source of tension between people: for example, Bulgarian women expecting their non-Bulgarian partners to be handy-men and Bulgarian men expecting most cooking and cleaning be done by their partner...

Is that how things have been with you? Do share even if you prefer to do so anonymously!

A cross-cultural marriage is an adventure I'd recommend

Anushka Asthana has a great piece on (her own) mixed-race marriage in The Observer. Here's the point that I found especially poignant:

So it is undoubtedly true that getting married highlighted the differences between us. Because before that, it had been about me and him and sometimes our parents. But now he has found himself not just my husband, but a fully fledged member of the Asthana (and Bahel) family. And I'm sure there is a risk that could bring along some difficulties. But the truth is that while our cultural backgrounds are hugely important to our lives, they don't come close to defining us. In fact, I'd say there are more ways in which Toby and I are similar than our racial backgrounds make us different.

That, too, has been my experience. Our cultural differences were never really apparent while Kyle and I were still dating as graduate students. As we became more serious about our relationship, got engaged and then married, family members got thrown in our life and that brought out differences that neither of us had been really aware of before. I'm not talking about anything BAD. Just different. Like daring to put tomatoes in your mostly-lettuce salad. If my father knew we did this, he would probably disown me.


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Birds and words

About a month ago, Kyle and I were at a dinner party where we met a couple who're avid birdwatchers. They talked about rescuing wounded eagles, stuffing dead birds in their freezer, traveling to San Francisco to see the parrots of Telegraph Hill and taking daily bike rides around town to observe local birds. I was fascinated by their stories. When I asked them how one gets into birdwatching, they told me, d'uh, start watching the birds around you.

So, I started peaking out of our windows a bit more and, low and behold, there they were! Little birds, singing their butts off... right under my nose. The cardinals were the first ones that I was able to spot out because of their beautiful red feathers and punk style.


During our Christmas trip to St. Louis, Kyle pointed out the bluejays on his mom's porch. There were so many of them! Beautiful blue coloring and cocky attitudes: chasing other birds away from the food we'd left for them.


I already thought I was sort of hooked when Kyle presented me with the most awesomely unexpected holiday present ever: BINOCULARS! He's had them since he was a little kid but, needless to say, hasn't been using them much in the last twenty years or so. Now they're mine!


Exciting! Obviously, I am curious to learn about the birds in my backyard but also, I am looking forward to practicing sitting still and being patient: the two most important skills for a birdwatcher. Or any human being, really.

***
Photo of the cardinal by Timothy K. Hamilton
Photo of the bluejay by Bruce Bodjack

Don't be afraid of Santa

This holiday season, Kyle and I have been mad about video montages of crying children having their picture taken with Santa. I was telling my parents about it and Dad sent me the following portrait of me at the age of 3, I think. The picture was taken minutes after I got my glamorous purse-present from Santa (We called him Grandfather Frost in Bulgaria at the time).


I emailed the picture to Kyle and here's what he wrote back in response.

Some observations:

1. You are adorable.
2. You said you were "almost" crying...
3. You have the same haircut!
4. Kude e Diado Mraz?
5. Mnogo te obicham, tikvarina.

kailcho :*

Happy New Year to you all! Don't be afraid of Santa!

Is positivism childish?

Recently, one of the fashion bloggers I follow posted a Code of Comments in an attempt to discourage negativism on her blog. She asked people to keep comments positive which had everybody and their mother telling her whether that was good or bad. Jessica ended up modifying her request by pointing out that there's a difference between feedback and being critical (I think she meant "being bitchy") but the debate kept going and going. If you have a little bit of time on your hands, I encourage you to read the whole discussion on What I Wear because it's the first one of its kind, I think. The entry prompted a series of very thoughtful comments on fashion blogging in particular but also, more generally, about the nature of internet dialog and the commercialization of blogging.

The reason why I bring this up here is a comment by Rosemary MacCabe I noticed, which pointed out a difference between Americans' and Europeans' attitudes toward criticism.

As for all the people going "haters are just jealous", to me that's just a really funny, American way of looking at things. Americans (wild stereotype here!) are so much more positive than Europeans - and that's not an insult - so any disagreements are often construed as being negative, when they're not; they're just disagreements. I think Europeans are much more cynical and less insulted when people disagree with them, probably because we disagree with one another a whole lot more!

I find myself in agreement with the comment: there IS a difference. And I do agree that the Americans in my life have, in general, have been way more positive and optimistic than the Europeans I know. Kyle and I actually had multiple arguments because of that when we lived in Bulgaria. (It's my fault, I slip back into general cynicism when I'm home). I hate cynicism and the I-can't-be-fooled attitude that I find so prevalent in Bulgaria. That's part of the reason why I've temporarily abandoned my feminist blog. Every time I brought up a topic there I was first accused of being naive for finding a certain case of discrimination unjust and stupid for expecting things to change. Every time I gave a reason why neither was the case, I'd be insulted (stupid, dumb, Americanized, naive, frigid, etc.).


I know that hope and positivism are really out of favor right now but I strongly believe that in the grand scheme of things staying positive and encouraging respectful constructive dialog is both easier AND more productive. What do you guys think? For the Bulgarians among you, do you agree with my observations about Bulgarians being generally cynical and pessimistic? Does that drive you nuts?! It drives me up the fucking wall.

Translating Tolstoy

Earlier today I came across Translating Tolstoy: an interview with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the husband-and-wife duo behind some of the most beautiful translations of the Russian classics in the last couple of decades. Oh, my! I thought. These two are the superstars of mix-breeders!

Mr. Pevear, 66 years old, was born in Waltham, Mass., and initially translated works from French and Italian. His wife was born in Leningrad, Russia, and emigrated to Israel in 1973, where she lived for two years. The couple met in the United States in 1976 and married six years later. They've been translating books together since 1986. Ms. Volokhonsky provides the first translation of each work, with running commentary on the author's style; her husband works from that draft to render his own version. They then confer and work on that text together.

The interview is obviously focused on their work but as I was reading it I kept recognizing familiar patterns of interaction:

WSJ: How do you resolve your differences over the work, and do disagreements ever spill over into your personal life?

Ms. Volokhonsky: Richard is a native speaker of English. I'm a native speaker of Russian. My task is to explain to Richard what is happening in the Russian text. Then it is up to him to do what he can. The final word is always his. I can say this is not quite what the Russian says. Either he finds something that satisfies me or he says no, this is how we're going to do it. We discuss endlessly and sometimes it becomes a nuisance because we return to it again and again even after the manuscript goes off. But we really don't quarrel. It would be much more interesting if we did.

Kyle and I do that too. When I am moved or offended by an article, an email, or a comment on my other blog that was originally written in Bulgarian, I translate it to Kyle. Then: explain, explain, explain, go back and forth, explain. We do quarrel sometimes, though, and it definitely IS interesting.

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Raising a Bilingual Child

There's a great discussion on the New York Times Motherlode blog about raising bilingual children. Obviously, you want your child to learn whatever languages you and your partner speak. But how to go about it is not as simple as it might seem at first glance:

My husband and I are both bilingual (Spanish/English) and are trying to raise our daughter to be the same. We’re taking the same approach our parents used: all Spanish at home until she’s two or three and then start teaching English.

...

The differences this time around, though, are that we live hundreds of miles away from our families, our bilingual friends are either childless or live too far away to make weekly visits practical, and we live in a predominantly English-speaking suburb. The local playgroups and mommy-and-me classes are all English speaking, so our daughter (10 months old) never hears other children speak in Spanish. On top of that, she hears us speaking to other people in this strange other language.

I think that most of us here on this blog find ourselves in similar situations. Maybe if you live in Chicago, where there's a large Bulgarian community, things are different, but for most of us... speaking Bulgarian outside of Bulgaria is a mostly domestic activity.

How do those of you who already have kids go about passing it on to the little ones? Do you even try?

P.S. For those of you who are wondering, Kyle and I do not have kids yet.

Bulgarian accents and Russian Spies

Every year Rhodes students organize a marathon reading of the Odyssey. They develop a schedule and students and professors take turns reading for about 20 minutes each. They start on Friday afternoon and go right through the whole thing finishing around 10 the following morning. It's the kind of awesomely dorky thing that absolutely makes me miss college.

They did the Odyssey Marathon this past Friday and since Prof. Grady had signed up to read I decided to tag along. One of the student readers was a first year student from China. The kid had a thick accent but read VERY well and at the end everyone applauded him. Everyone was really encouraging, kept telling the kid he was doing great and helped him out when he wasn't sure how to pronounce certain words. I was having such a serious flashback to my own freshman year in college, I couldn't say a word.

My accent has been a constant source of worry and anxiety for me for 10 years now. That's how long it's been since I came to the States for the first time in 1999. I've aways known that it's nothing to be embarrassed about but still hate all the attention it attracts. It makes me feel more inadequate and insecure than anything else. I've gotten to a point where my accent doesn't show itself immediately. Usually I need to have talked to someone for an extended period of time before they "catch" me and ask. It doesn't even sound Eastern European as much as it just sounds idiosyncratic. But I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Still.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Yolina. She's Bulgarian and lives in Switzerland with her husband Marcel. Yo told me that she had just recently talked to her mentor at work, an American, who told her that sometimes when she talked, she sounded harsh. Actually, he told her she sounded like the Russian Spy in old movies. He didn't mean it in a bad way of course... just sort of... matter of fact. He also made sure it was clear that it was nothing that she said, it was simply the way she was saying it, etc. etc. etc.

Yo and I had a long exchange about that. She queried her husband and her co-workers. I spoke to my in-house linguistic expert (Kyle) and my dear friend Doriana who lives in D.C. There's no consensus on the subject but all have recognized that sometimes Bulgarians can sound a little bit, for lack of a better word, harsh. Kyle thinks its our intonation. Marcel thinks that whatever it is, it comes to the surface only during work-related conversations. Some of Yo's co-workers think it's differences in the etiquette of conducting business in Europe and the States. Others say they notice the accent but they wouldn't necessarily qualify it as harsh. I say that I don't know what it is but I am terrified that someone will notice and fixate on it. Ha! I guess I am terrified of myself.

So, this is sort of a long and rambling story without much of a point to speak of. But I wanted to put it all out there and ask for your thoughts on Bulgarian accents but also on accents in more general terms. Do you have one? And, more importantly, what is your relationship to your accent? Love it? Hate it? Both?

Explain.

Mignon Ave in Memphis

We now live on Mignon Avenue in Memphis, TN. As we drove our truck down the Mississippi river, Kyle and I wondered what the proper way to pronounce the name of our street would be. We were pretty sure it would not be pronounced the French way because that would be just silly, right?. But we also couldn't quite predict how exactly Memphis folk would have southernized it. We agreed that MIGH-nun would be it.

I call MLGW, the local electric company, to make sure they would have turned on our electricity by the time we arrived because a night without air-conditioning in Memphis equals suicide.

MLGW guy: What is your address, Ma'am?
Me: It's 1821 M-I-G-N-O-N Avenue. Do you happen to know how one's supposed to pronounce that?
MLGW guy: Mignon?

*A Frenchman could not have produced a better French accent.*

Me: Oh! Mignon?!

*Hoping my French professor is not somehow miraculously eavesdropping on the conversation or I would have my French grades retroactively deflated.*

MLGW guy: Yes, Ma'am. Mignon. Like, you know, Fillet Mignon.
Me: Of course.

Next time you have pronunciation questions, feel free to call Memphis Light, Gas and Water.

In place of a book review

Last night I spent two hours talking to our landlord Sylvia. Sylvia is in her 50s and immigrated to Germany from Tetovo (Macedonia) when she was 6. Naturally, we have a lot to talk about.

There have been many untimely deaths in Sylvia's family. Her own father passed away when he was only 34. Her sister's husband died at 48 after battling Hepatitis B for over 6 years, which he got from contaminated tubes at the hospital where he was voluntarily donating blood. A couple of years later, Sylvia's only daughter (only 12-years-old) was hit in a car accident and died.

At the same time, Sylvia is the sunniest, friendliest, warmest, strongest person you would ever meet. She tends to her garden and to those around her with utmost care. She said that when her daughter died, she felt she had to be strong for her nieces. Their Dad had passed away just a couple of years before and now their younger cousin was dead. I needed to show them that life could still be good for them, that it is not all bad, she said. So she continued to work, and garden, and travel, and read, and laugh, and grow the meanest roses in all of Freiburg.

Last night, as I was giving her a hug good-night, all I wanted to say to her was "Read Oscar Wao! Read Oscar Wao!".

Grey mullets and butts

I am working on a short story for Jo Carubia's anthology and found myself researching the English names of fish we eat in Bulgaria.

This pretty fella here is a КЕФАЛ. Or, in English, A Grey Mullet.


His Black Sea brother, the КАЛКАН, goes by "Butt" in English.


I kid you not.


***
Photos via The 5th Day and Boby Dimitrov

Mostly book-related

• I am almost done with the second book of 2666. I continue to find Bolano fascinating... although my enthusiasm is now interspersed with depression, confusion and anxiety. When I put down my book and look up, I am surprised by the color of things around me. These are all signs of a good book, I think.

• I asked a famous Bulgarian poet that I know from the internets to write me a reading list so I could catch up on contemporary Bulgarian fiction. Which he did. I LOVE the internets.

• I asked my friends on twitter if they would be kind enough to send me above mentioned books to Freiburg. I am getting a package some time next week. What can I say, I LOVE the internets.
  

• Kyle tells me I am becoming obsessive about books but continues to read to me. Good husband.

• If you want a quick laugh, check out this interview with Jessa Crispin, editor and founder of one of the best book-blogs of all time: Bookslut. Question: Under what circumstances would you tell a lie? Answer: Under most circumstances.

My sister, the gymnist

My sister has been experiencing leg pain so she went to the doctor. The doctor, predictably, told Ina that she needed to exercise but also, just so she wouldn't feel like she had wasted her time going all the day to the Doctor's to find out something that she already knew, gave her a referral for six sessions of "krankengymnastik". From German: krank=sick, gymnastik=gymnastics.



Ina's first session was a couple of days ago and she showed up promptly wearing a track-suit and tennis shoes. You know, ready for GYMNASTICS. Her physical therapist told her to lie down on a table and proceeded to give her a leg massage.

Call for submissions: Harvest Baskets

My friend Jo Carubia is a writer, editor and educator who has many years of experience in publishing and academia. Jo is working on an edited volume of stories about women and is soliciting submissions. The more of us contribute, the better!!!

INVITATION

Gathering Stories from Heart to Heart
Legends, Tales, and Truth about Women in Families
Near and Far

Harvest Baskets

HARVEST BASKETS is a gathering of stories about the women in your family, and every family. This book will include short reflections, humorous stories, poetry, copies of letters written generations ago, photographs, and narratives of growing up with the influence of magnificent women. It will also include some memories that are puzzles still unsolved, or even dark recollections that cast shadows through the years.

Both men and women are invited to submit brief stories that sketch a moment, an event, a character from your family’s life. Suggested length is 250 to 500 words, but please inquire if your story is shorter or longer.

Stories about . . . .

• Grandmothers
• Mothers
• Sisters
• Aunts
• Daughters
• Cousins
• and more . . .

SUBMIT YOUR STORIES
jo.carubia [at] gmail [dot] com OR mgp0506 [at] gmail [dot] com
See also Metaphorical Ink for more information and sample stories.

Please be sure to tell Jo I sent you over! Also, if you are interested, I could email you a nice poster you could put up in your office/department, etc.

Part III

I forgot to tell you about the third word I learned over Christmas:

PIDDLE (v):
It means to waste time or spend your time inefficiently.

The word, of course, came up during a MAJOR gossip session at my favorite Philly dive bar. The night started off innocently enough... a bunch of old friends drinking beer and remembering the good times when we all actually lived in the same town. As the night wore thin, though, conversation started to turn to discussions about those of our friends who could not be there with us. The word "piddle" was used to describe the working habits of a dear friend of ours who seems to be taking his sweet time working on his dissertation.

I really loved the word because it just sounds so melodic to me. When I hear piddle, I actually imagine myself sitting in a boat on a sunny afternoon... reading poetry out loud.

I also loved the word because it seems to perfectly describe what I do these days. I piddle and I LOVE it.

Just say it

Kyle and I are big fans of Laguna Beach spin-off shows. We both loved watching The Hills and now follow both Bromance and The City.

The other night on The City, Erin's boyfriend is in town visiting. He sort of mentions that he's been thinking about moving to NYC and possibly in with her but Erin quickly brushes him off, saying that the long-distance thing is working great for her. The day he is leaving to go back home, they are out on the street, trying to hail a cab when he brings up his plan to move to NYC one more time. We never get to hear what Erin has to say because a taxi pulls over and the boyfriend is gone.

At this point Kyle jumps in his seat. This is clearly staged, he says. NO ONE would bring up moving in together this way. Which leads us into a long discussion. He thinks that it is absolutely impossible that somebody would be so casual about such a big thing and that nobody would ever bring it up when it is perfectly clear there would be no time for a proper discussion.

That sort of makes sense to me, but I can totally understand how you would have something BIG on your mind like, let's say, moving in with your significant other. You are so terrified of potentially being rejected by your partner that you keep putting off having an actual conversation about it. You finally realize, oh shit, if I don't ask now I will NEVER ask, so you blurt it out in the most inopportune time. Does that make sense? What do you think?

Part II

The introduction to the second word I learned this Christmas will be short because I am a little bit embarrassed to be telling. The word is:

PASTIES: Glue-on nipple covers. Usually with tassles.

I think that strippers and porn-stars use them. Private individuals use them, too. I think there's a Sex and the City episode in which Samantha puts some on but I could be wrong about this. It does sound like something she would do, right?

You will be disappointed to hear that I did not learn the word in usage. Kyle and I were hanging out in our Philadelphia hotel room trying to figure out where we could go look for gloves when Kyle promptly suggested Macy's. PASTIE'S?! I asked.

Kyle's eye got THIS big and... Yeah.