Hot tea and other blunders

I realized today I make a consistently American request. I've lived in Europe for the better part of 10 years on and off. My significant other and I joke about being Euro trash but really we are contented expats who still like "Home" too.

But while I know I shouldn't care, I pride myself on often blending in. I like to eat like the locals and go places like locals etc. So how after so many years did I realize I keep ordering incorrectly on airplanes?

I ask for hot tea. Every time. Now, my US compatriots are possibly saying, "Yeah, so?" While my British friends are laughing at me. 

In the US, we have lovely BREWED ice tea. (I am an admitted tea-sob.) This is real tea (nothing powdered please) brewed mostly hot, but there are new cold brews, then it's served on ice. In the south this comes with a bucket of sugar in it. I don't like my tea sweet though. So in the US, it's not uncommon to hear an order like, "I'll have an sweet ice tea." 

I am a habitual daily hot tea drinker because I like it and I don't drink coffee. So I must specify what I want. I realized in Europe there is only (where I frequent) tea that is hot, no need to specify. There is a product in a can called "Nestea" and it is dreadful and bears no resemblance to tea in my snobby opinion,  but there are lots of people who love it. It is very sweet but it still does not taste like USA southern sweet tea. 

All of that to realize that I always say "hot tea" and that always marks me as -- not from around here. I don't care necessarily but to suddenly notice after so many years is interesting, like discovering a birthmark you didn't know about.

Now that I think about it, I was at a conference and I remember one of my British friends sort of mocking my "hot tea" request with a raised questioning eyebrow. I loftily pointed out the US custom of icing it. 

I think the same friend felt my using hot water from the faucet (the tap!) to fill my water bottle in hotels was also a faux paus of social norms. 

Clearly I will always carry my uncouthness with me as I drink my hot tea and snuggle my mediocrelly warm water bottle, but I'm having fun and trying not to be cold. Next flight I will try with all my might to order. Tea. Just tea and see what happens.

Discipline versus Desire

As a writer, I wrestle with these two ideas. A lot. I suppose everyone does in some aspect of their lives. It's like a constant catch-22 of wanting something but not wanting to do it. I hear running may be like that too but I wouldn't know. (snicker)

It's a constant ebb and flow. Things have to get done in life, right? Doctor's visits, groceries. So those are things you just do because you do, because you have to for living normally. Sometimes you do the normal things without really thinking about it and other times, you drag yourself kicking and screaming. Maybe you desire to eat so your discipline yourself to go to the grocery store.

With writing, I desire to tell a story. The stories just aren't as much fun roaming around in my head as when other people get to share in them. Stories are for sharing even though I immensely enjoy creating them in my head. So yes, I desire to get another book out to keep the inkling of writing career moving forward despite my day job.

But the application of the seat of the pant to the chair in order to type in a computer is another matter altogether. It is a discipline by all definitions. One must practice to improve and make progress! If I can muster the discipline to do it, I nearly always enjoy myself. I become lost in the story like I'm watching a movie.

Sometimes you hit a snag in the story and that makes it slower. Sitting and picking at it is the only way for me to unravel. This usually looks like me sitting at the computer scrolling, reading, and staring off into space.

I have seasons where I get in a grove and I walk in the house and sit down and write without thinking. Like some of those grocery runs that just occur without pain. But other times I like the idea of sitting to write but I don't get there without huge disciplinary effort of myself. I don't think books can get written on desire alone. I think all of them, if they are going to be good or decent, are going to require seasons of serious sitting, hammering, and red ink days.

It's the marriage of discipline and desire where things get produced out of love. There's another intersection where things get produced a lot too -- that is where discipline and the need to eat meet and we go to work for ourselves or someone else. Sometimes writing is in both those places.

One trick I use on myself when I'm resisting the big project, like I am now, is I promise myself just one hour. Only sit here for one hour and work on this, the promise goes, then you'll feel productive and get to do something else too. It works remarkably well for me. If you only do it one hour at a time though, you've got to do it regularly. Of course, the writing recommendation is to write every day. Sometime my life is like that and sometimes it isn't.

I heard a phrase and it's so true. I LOVE having written!

Books read in 2014

Again, I didn't read as much as I'd like, nor write as much as I wish this last year. I did re-engage with audio books thanks to my brother's recommendation of Steve Martin's memoir. I also read more nonfiction than usual which you may recall is not my favorite and often slows me down. That being said, The Gift of Fear was fascinating and I wish I could articulate even a smidge of Fast Thinking Slow Thinking. Perhaps you too will find something new to try. 

1. Six Years, harlan corben, New England, ****

2. Gift of Fear, gavin de becker, nonfiction ****

3. The torah codes, ezra barany, N ca and israel, **

4. A Duty to the Dead, Charles Todd, WWI, ****
5. Board Member Orientation, the concise guide, Michael Batts, nonfiction

6. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand, **** nonfiction WWII

7. Maltese Falcon, dashiel hammett, 1950s CA, ****

8. Every Secret Thing, Laura Lippman, Baltimore, ***

9. The Attack,  Yasmina Khandra, Israel, Palestine, **

10. Chasing the Storm, Martin Molsted, Germany, greece, Russia, Cyprus ****

11. Be mine, Rick Mofina, **, san Francisco

12. Paradise of thieves' gk chesterton, italy, short story

13. Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett, medieval UK***

14. Wings, Juliet Kincaid, fairytale mystery (beta read) ****

15. Where'd you go, Bernadette, Marie Semple, Seattle ****

16. Born standing up, Steve Martin, autobiog, ****

17. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson, Kansas and Iowa 1950ish, ****, not mystery, Pulitzer Prize winner 2005

18. A test of Wills, Charles Todd, after WW I in UK, ****

19. Bossypants, Tina Fey, biography,***

20. A Butterfly Forest,  Tom Lowe, Florida Ocala FoRest **

21. Shawshank Redemption, Stephen King, novella, *****

22. I feel bad about my neck, Nora Ephron, memoir, ****

23. Private, James Patterson & Maxine Paetro, LA/CA, ***

24. Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, Daniel Kahneman, Psychology 

25. Healing thru Humor, Joke book, Charles Hunter

26.  Let's Pretend This Never Happened, a mostly true memoir, Jenny Lawson, **** hilarious but rough. Don't read this with your mom, unless she swears a lot. 

27. Monkeewrench, PJ Tracy, st. paul, mn, ***

28. In the bleak midwinter, Julia spencer-Fleming, upper NY small town, ****

29. Hurt people hurt people, Sandra Wilson, psychology nonfiction ***

30. Citizen insane, Karen Cantwell, USA, ***.5

Smoothie disaster

So I went last week to a hair place recommended to me for relaxing head massages. I need to learn to relax more, so I thought I'd try it. Turned out to be a really natural place. Everything they rubbed on my face and hair came from plants. One of which must have been capsaicin because it burned like crazy and they looked dismayed that I would have that reaction to the wonder of special plant juices rubbed on my head. 

Anyway due to some dietary issues, I'll save for another blog ( I know that excites you to tune in later!) I've been doing a lot of online research on healthy, natural voodoo junk. Okay, not really voodoo but I try not to take all the special vitamin powders too seriously. But I'd read about dermatitis and rosacea possibly being linked to food issues, so when the creams and potions lady relaxing my scalp said the same thing I listened. 

She recommended two herbs to cleanse my liver and no more meat. I looked up the herbs because it was a Spanish conversation and I thought I'd better make sure I'd understood. So one herb says it can be potentially toxic and you should be under an herbalists care. You see why I say voodoo? 

Anyhow, I asked the farmacia here about them and they said oh it's fine it's just plants. I once attended a seminar about poisons, yes on purpose. I know, weird. The expert said that herbs are a real thing and sited some overdose situations.

So I only bought the tea cleanser of the weaker herb to clean my liver.

Then I thought there's all kinds of smoothie cleansers and that seems real natural and heathier than gobbing down packages of dried I don't know what. By some freak chance I actually had all the ingredients in the house. If you've read my avoiding grocery shopping blog you'd know how odd this is. 

My blender is broke, so I used the food processor. Maybe I should have reviewed the ingredients but I went from memory. I think the parsley and the food processor didn't get along. The frozen berry mix had a lot of hard bits that didn't smooth out either. It needed a lot of sweetner and still tasted like purple parsley.  I picked bits of parsley and hard berry pieces out of my teeth for an hour and I had burning indigestion for 5 hours. 

AND I'm informed that it doesn't count as the sweetner wasn't natural. At this rate, my liver is doomed.

 Someone pass the Oreos.

Book list beef

Maybe because it's summer but I've been seeing a lot of book lists. 30 books to read before you are 30. The 100 books you must read before you die. Beach reads. Books to read before the movies come out. 14 books to read if you loved "fill in the blank". Etc, etc.

I don't mind lists and clearly I've been looking whether I fit the profile or not. Perhaps I'm nosy and wonder what books would have made me different in my 20s, right? Those lists often seem to full of grandiose ideas, accusations of intolerance, and books I've never heard of. Something must be odd about me.

I was on one of those lists of 100 something or others. It was not just classics but a mix and I felt very smug to discover that I had just started one of the books on the list. I also really love it when one of my favorite books is on a list as well.

The other thing I seem to run into is that books I tried and really disliked are on the list too. What do I do with that? It always makes me feel somewhat defective. If I were a REAL reader, I would love all those 100 marvelous important essential reads, right?

So the book in question that I saw this particular day was Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It is a historical saga of the 12th century. Those who have read my blog may recall that even though I end up liking historical books once I get into it, they are not my immediate go to.

We had a friend who really liked Pillars of the Earth (pre-online lists) and I had picked it up used and left it on the shelf. This spring I had a massive amount of travel and read quite a few books on my reader and thought a paper book was in order as I would be in house for a while.

I usually read a novel in a week if I'm not super busy or a couple weeks if I'm writing as well as going to my day job. Historicals, nonfiction, and something that I'm not enjoying will take me much longer. I'm just not driven to see what happens next like I am in my beloved murder and suspense books. It took me forever to get thru Unbroken, that poor man was stranded forever and I just couldn't seem to help him get anywhere better as I read.

Well, Pillars is a HUGE book -- 983 pages. That was one issue. Then the theme from medieval times wasn't luring me back to the page daily. Then every time I picked it up someone else got brutalized and it was just too depressing. (I know, my significant other asks, and murder isn't? I can't explain how that works in my head.)

Now don't get me wrong. It is an epic book and it is well written indeed. I did finally cross the finish line after an embarrassing amount of time. The bad guy that I really wanted to get it big time just got fat and old. I did miss some of the characters when it was over especially as I had passed a long period of time with them in my slow reading. Just not my cup of tea.

Clearly somewhere I am in the minority because I've seen this on more than one book list. So I'm fascinated what brings a book to those great heights? Is it the epicness - the length? Long lasting sales? TV series? Clearly not because the lists also have a few obscure books that are brilliant but not in the limelight.

Amazon says re their top 100, "We had a few goals when we started out: We wanted the list to cover all stages of a life (which is why you'll find children's books in here), and we didn't want the list to feel like homework. Of course, no such list can be comprehensive – our lives, we hope, are long and varied – but we talked and argued and sifted and argued some more and came up with a list, our list, of favorites." Top 100

I was fascinated about the clamor surrounding Gatsby as the film came out. Even when I was younger and read it, I didn't get people's robust enthusiasm for it. He's not a character I enjoyed spending time with and I was relieved it was over.

Then there are books on the list in genres you just know you don't enjoy reading. What do you do with that? Sometimes I have read them -- but I often find that it's a struggle as it's not my taste and in the end I didn't like it. As I get more into the middle of life, I think I may run out of time to read all the amazing books out there and I'm not going to beat myself up about reading things I can see I won't enjoy.

It's cheating but sometimes when something becomes a huge phenomenon, a la Hunger Games or Harry Potter, I'll watch one of the films to get the idea of the story. I KNOW it's not the same before you shout that out, but it gives me the idea of the storyline and the characters that people are all abuzz about and I can follow conversations about it.

This has got me toying with the idea of what my top books list would be like or perhaps my to-read list would look like. I don't buy too much hot off the presses for financial reasons so I'm not the girl to do the "Best Books of 201X."

Lists I find helpful are if you liked this...you'll like this other one. Maybe I'll start polling people on some of my favorites and make lists for my own exploration based on the good ol' word of mouth (all be it virtual!)

What book is YOUR must read recommendation?

Top ones that come to mind: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Classic); Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier (Classic and Suspense); Where are the Children? Mary Higgins Clark (Suspense); A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle (Travelogue).

Know any like these?

When are you REALLY a grown up?

What is it that makes a grown up? I don't know if there's a certain"real" definition. I've definitely had moments and times that I said, "Now, that means I'm grown up."

I also still have times when I think I'm not legit as a grown up. I still like my music too loud, maybe not 24/7, but I do like my loud moments. I love when I'm driving alone and I can blast the radio. I like some new music and some of the stuff I had growing up too. So my tunes aren't ready to grow up.

People ask me if I have kids to which I reply no. Well, that's a conversation stopper for most people and one that makes me feel like I'm not a real grown up. The adults have children; the rest are just pretending. Now, no one ever tries to make me feel that way. It's just my own sense that being responsible for the viability of a human being seems like a totally grown up thing. It's like being a doctor. Lives depend on you. Sometimes I try to break the post no kids ice in the conversation by chatting about my dog. She depends on me but I know it's not the same, and I wonder then if people think I'm crazy. (Jury is out on that one) Maybe I just don't know how to handle the conversation in a grown up way. 

Do clothes make you a grown up? Some of my formative years were during a preppie dress for success era. This has really been brought home to me lately. In Madrid, boots are in style. I recognize in myself a style schizophrenia that makes me doubt my adulthood. There are formal horse riding style boots. Good for slacks and wool skirts and preppie business wear. I should like these and only these if I'm a grown up, right? But the rough and rowdy, kick someone's butt boots appeal to me TOO. The space ship is coming soon boots also hold an appeal. So my struggle with boots and clothes seems to bump me out of the grown up category. I dabble in them all. This makes me think I'm not a real grown up. A real grown up would have a singular sense of their style. Right?

One thing that made me affirm my adulthood early on is the presence of bills that must be paid, and the paying thereof. I do still hold on to that corner of adulthood. Like it or not it's just reality. Maybe familiarity has bred contempt in this case and I have lost that adult feeling. It's lost the sense of grand adult-ness though I do see it as a mark of a real grown up to pay one's bills.

Another thing that a roommate of mine and I used to joke about was having to be the responsible parties in given situations in college. That study group that the teacher organized? Yeah, but I would be the one to make the meeting happen and to get the project pieces turned in. Or organize transportation for a group? That would be me. Or plan the outing or whatever. That seems to have stuck, but maybe in my, uh, middle adulthood I'm learning to let people deal with their lack of planning, without me always jumping in as I might in the past. Both of those make me feel grown up. For the moment anyway.

Books read in 2013

1. Narrow Dog to Indian River, Terry Darlington, South USA, travelogue ****
2. The Sholes Key, Clarissa Draper, UK, **
3. Sick Puppy, Carl Hiaasen, Florida, ***
4. Mothers, miniskirts, and muslims, Christine a. mallouhi, nonfiction***
5. Fever Dream, by Preston and Child, Africa, Louisiana, etc.****
6. Cabal, Michael Dibdin, an Aurelio Zen detective mystery, Rome & Milan, ***
7. Dog-ma, the zen of slobber, Barbara Brunner, nonfiction dog stories, ***
8. winter in Madrid, CJ Sansom, Madrid  during WW II, ****
9. Death of an obnoxious tourist, Maria Hodgins, Florence, **
10. The psyhopath Test: a journey into the madness industry. Jon Ronson nonfiction. ***
11. Approacing Menace, June Shaw, alabama, *
12. The Absent One, Jussi adler-olsen, copenhagen, ****
13. The dog who bit a policeman, Stuart m. kaminsky, Moscow, ****
14. the last page, Libby Fischer Hellmann & David Walker, novella in a library, **
15. Subterranean, by James Rollins, caves in antarctica, ****
16. Spying in High Heels, By Gemma Halliday, LA, ***.5
17. The Scent of Rain and Lightening, by Nancy Pickard, Kansas, *****
18. The Bookseller, by Mark Pryor, Paris, ****
19. The Appeal, John Grisham, Mississippi ***
20. Grass Roots, Stuart Woods, DC Georgia, not my politics, ***
21. Extreme Measures, Vince Flynn, Washington DC and others ****
22. Betaread for someone...not fun, too much like work
23. Cold Vengeance, *** due to cliff hanger ending, by preston and childs, scotland and new york city
24. Two graves, Preston and Childs **** lots of USA
25. Kissing Christmas Goodbye, MC Beaton, *** Cotswalds UK
26.  The angel of the odd, edgar allen poe, short story.
27.  Silent Night, Mary Higgins Clark, NyC ***
28. Road to Gandolfo, robert Ludlum, switzerland, d.c., italy, ****

This year again I read fewer books than a couple years ago and that makes me feel somehow sad. I can tell you about editing, writing or a really intense new day job, but it just is what it is. I used to read a book a week or more a few years ago, but I do a lot more writing than I used to and that I count as a success. I also make myself accomplish a few household tasks as well as writing tasks before I start a new book (to motivate me!), so that slowed me down, but was productive for my life. I wish I'd had more five star rating worthy books the last couple years but more I liked this year than last. 

Hard vs. paperback vs.ereader

I love books and I love reading often choosing it over other activities like TV. I've been traveling with my ereader and I love  having multiple books in just a few ounces of weight. Passing thru airports I still have a gut instinct to want to go into the bookstores. 

Clearly additional weight is not added by shopping, only by buying. I have to be disciplined or I will still succumb because I do love paper books, but my back doesn't like carrying them. 

All this looking got me thinking about the various merits of the different types of books and why over the years I have purchased various formats.

I love the way hard backs look on a shelf. There's a presence and definitely more majesty to them than worn paperbacks. Another advantage I like in hard backs is that they are easier to convince to stay open while my hands are busy, usually eating. I love to read while I eat. I have never been a habitual reader of hardback books mostly because of price. I was never sure what to do with the dust jacketeither Keep? I feel obligated to keep it. But if you want a shelf of black or leatherette books the dust jacket detracts, but I understand the books may be worth more with them.  I disliked the idea of discarding them, but they often tore and seemed less dignified then.

 If you read an earlier blog of mine,  I talked about finding books hanging around my parents' or grandparents' houses, so I didn't come into the idea of buying new until later and I was quite poor in that phase of life. Hardback purchases were generally only done if they were on sale and then likely only if it was a favorite author.

Since I mostly scavenged books for a long time, I was rarely up to date with an author's releases so buying the paperback was never a hardship of waiting for me. 

I love the way paperbacks can fit in a bag or sometimes a pocket. I used to feel really weird and insecure about leaving the house without a book so paperbacks fit my life easier. I learned the art of eves deopping  and people watching so it doesn't stress me out so much anymore to not have a book on me daily. Odd observations of people end up as bits in books I write later I find.

I like the friendly feel and the price of paperbacks, but they don't stay open as easily when your hands are busy, say eating. I don't break spines on books for me that's a no-no, so it's about finding random things and using the edge of plates trying to prop them open. It wasn't always tidy. 

I also like the colorful creative covers of paperbacks but those clearly don't lend the elegant look to the bookcase. I like owning a quantity of books and that was easier with the price of paperbacks. 

Size matters for me. That's why I recently switched to a mini ipad. The full size was too much weight for taking on the run or for a long day when you weren't sure of reading time. Like a hardback.  I'm very happy with the new size and I love that you can prop up ereaders (with the right case) for hands free reading, great for eating. Smile. 

The odd dilemma I have on ebook purchasing is my old price habits. I don't mind paying up to paperback prices but when we get up to $12-15 that starts to feel like hardback rates but without the sort of visual benefit of that book on the shelf. It's probably my old cheapskate ways. I know with my brain that $12 is not a hardback price, but so far I haven't been able to bring myself to pay that much. The virtual bookshelf I like well stocked, colorful and affordable. Oh but I love having many books with me and not worrying about coming to an end without a new book nearby. I WILL admit to worrying about wifi and fresh downloads though.

Urban Explorers aka trespassers

I recently tweeted and posted a link to a photographer who goes into abandoned buildings and takes pictures. A couple years ago I also saw a reality TV show on a team of guys who would do these guerrilla break in of places in order to take pictures of abandoned buildings. It sort of fascinates me and brings out the sneaky Scooby-doo feelings. (Loved that show as a kid.)

Once near where I lived an entire neighborhood was condemned. In a rather ominous bureaucratic move, the city decided they needed more commercial zoning and since they were landlocked the way to get it was to condemn a 40 year old neighborhood of small houses. Probably small voices as well. I don't know if the compensation was fair at all, I do know everyone wasn't happy.

Of course, it was prime real estate right along the freeway. One poor disgruntled soul spray painted a protest on the side of his house for everyone on the highway to see as they drove by. In time they were all given a date to get out and a fence was put around the entire four block square. Then it proceeded to sit there untouched for months.

I don't know what came over me but one blustery autumn day my significant other and I decided to explore the now abandoned neighborhood. The main entry street had a bar across it that was locked to keep cars out, but if you were walking there was no impediment to just ducking under the bar. So we did.

This is one of the most bizarre experiences I've had as an adult and it has really stuck with me. I have often described it to people and probably mentioned it in blogs before.

Because no one else was moving in or because they were mad, people had left random things they didn't want in their homes. Also all the doors stood open so in this entire neighborhood you could just randomly wander into the homes.

People had garage sales and just left the things that didn't sell standing on the trestle tables in the drive or garage. I actually picked up a couple little dishes that I still have and use on occasion. Souvenirs of sort.

Clothes were left in closets like someone was coming back. As we walked we managed to get onto creepy stories and in one house freaked ourselves out hearing strange noises. I think in a way it was better than any haunted house experience because it was very mental and real. As I'm prone to do, my imagination ran away with me and I thought someone could be roaming around inside this little neighborhood for weeks hiding, living off food left in cabinets, changing clothes. What if they came on us? What if they were a fugitive? We are in here where no one could hear us if we yelled.

It was a very satisfying, nosy, creepy, adventure and no one the wiser. It didn't occur to me until I read this article (The photos) and looked at his photos that we could have been arrested. The photographer has been arrested a lot for trespassing. I'd like to think we'd have gotten away with a warning and a "get out of here you kids" like Scooby-do and the gang.

We made another memorable trespass adventure now that I think of it, we probably also could have been arrested for too -- but we were young and carefree and enjoyed a good adrenaline kick from being spooked.

It was Halloween in Dover, England. We'd taken the ferry over for the weekend and had no car. We were staying in a little b & b. It was of course cool and rainy, but the b & b was basic to say the least and sitting indoors could get old. So we went out hiking after dinner in the dark and found ourselves exploring all around the grounds of Dover Castle. It was lit up for a nice view from afar, but we stayed to the shadows and poked all around, even tried a few doors I think but didn't get inside the walls. It was great fun and creepy. One of those accidental events that is a memory that sticks with you.

I remember as a kid making up stories and taking turns freaking each other out about the house on the corner that seemed to have no one in it. There's just something fascinating about an empty or abandoned place. The question always lurks - is it really abandoned?

So have you explored any odd urban sites or trespassed? Any you'd like to visit?

English speaking friends and my writing habits

For the last eight weeks a friend I've known for 20 years has been here in Spain and another came to visit in the same time period. It has been unusual for us to have visitors the last two years. After seven years in Madrid the newness of that and visiting has worn off for a lot of our friends and family. A lot of people say they're coming but never get around to it. That international flight is a big pain in the internal time clock.

The writer in me has noticed that having a spontaneous friend to hang out with has ground my writing habits to a halt. The weather too has played a part. It's gotten cooler and sun down is coming earlier, so if I want to have a walk or anyone else in my social circle does, well that first hour after work needs to be taken advantage of immediately. 

Last year, I wrote after work for an hour usually. This was stronger in the summer when it was too hot to do anything involving motion. Plugging away an hour a or more a day produced a nice draft in about nine months. Editing is harder for me already and I've had some shifts in my day job responsibilities that have wrung out my brain soI've done little post work editing.

I turned my energies to writer work on the weekends earlier this year. It sounds really dull and there was a time in my life I would have never been able to sit still and write or edit on weekends, but now I  do, happily. Perhaps because I don't need (or think I need) to shop for house stuff or clothes. I do like to explore Madrid, but that takes a lot of energy I can't always muster.

So the last eight weeks, my visitor friends have wanted to go walking after work and see things on the weekends. Generally I've had people to be with and it's made me realize how absent that is from my life lately and I hadn't noticed.

I have friends who are permanent residents here in Spain, but they don't generally invite us places, many have kids and organizing outtings is a challenge. While we speak the language, it's still a lot more work to socialize in amother tongue and we often don't make the effort. We travel for work often so people aren't in the habit of connecting with us.  I really hadn't realized this until my English speaking friend came. It didn't hurt that she stayed in our area since we aren't in a central location either. 

I've realized I need to be more disciplined with my writing and not just rely on the absence of social activities as my writing crutch! I guess I enjoy time with my imaginary friends and forget to make the effort to get out and see real ones.