So many Things to Do, So Little Time

Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn’t have made one heck of a housewife. You know, cooking (check), bringing up kids (check), community work (check) but no job (well…) and a few lovely hobbies (check) instead. I very much doubt I’d have been bored. A solid liberal arts education gives you a wide enough horizon to be an interested human being, after all. Maybe I’d practice piano again. Or sign up for Arabic classes like I’ve been wanting to do. Ha. I bet the very thought of a stay-at-home-mom daughter would have made my brainy mother and her women’s lib generation shudder. But as my fabulous and equally brainy sister-in-heart A. pointed out, that generation fought for us having the choice as well as the opportunities. She’s right – and it was what I needed to hear when she said that, as I’d been struggling with the whole ‚OMG why did I not make more of the chances I was given in life‘ … in connection with the big 5-0 approaching. Anyway, that isn’t how things have worked out for me, and that’s fine. I get to do things that I love, which is anything but a given.

Where did this train of thought come from anyway? It’s my friend A.’s fault. She asked me for a lasagna recipe earlier today, and since I already wrote mine down a while back, all I needed to do was point her here. And then she said, Jeez, when do you even find the time to write all this stuff? Which made me feel like a weirdo. I’m certainly not an artist by any stretch. I don’t feel compelled to tell stories like I imagine authors do, I have no fictional characters in my head, I’m not plotting any story arcs, and I don’t think my musings and pics posted here are of great importance. And yet I find the whole blogging experience gratifying, and when I’ve done a good job with a post, I feel reasonably proud of it, in much the same way I feel happy with a piece of knitting or crochet that turned out well. Obviously it’s a time-consuming hobby, and sitting my butt down to write a post seriously cuts down on my free time, for unlike with crafts, I can’t really do anything else while writing. I guess you’d have to be a blogger yourself to understand why I do it. I certainly didn’t get it before I started this blog, even though there were a few bloggers I was following. It’s a mystery I won’t be solving tonight, that’s for sure, as I need to go put my kid to bed, stat.

An hour later. Kids. When you have them, they rule your life. Seeing that my mood has changed completely in the meantime, I’ll just continue this post with remembering one of the coldest Easters in years. But the crazy weather did make for some amazing light – magic, right?

My current crafts WIP is a pair of socks, for my friend S. in Frankfurt. Yesterday was her birthday, and I was going to finish the socks before that. I bought the yarn in good time, but I swear it took me 3 days to decide on a color scheme. I even did a color survey on Instagram because I just couldn’t make up my mind: Despite sound advice, I still wasn’t happy with any of the choices. I ended up trying out quite a few things – I don’t think I ever ripped up so many swatches. When I’d had it with that, I decided that stripies were the way to go, and here’s what that led to: I’ll finish the socks tonight so I can mail them to my friend tomorrow. She’s an alternative medicine practitioner, with beautiful long honey-blond hair and amazing eyes, blue and green and some grey – and I seem to remember she wears white to work, so I hope the socks will go well with her coloring. They’re made of a soft merino mix (mint green) and the downiest baby merino yarn (off-white). I think they’re really pretty in a retro kind of way, and also they feel really snuggly. Handmade socks warm your heart from the feet up, don’t they ;-)?

The rest of my week looks kind of crazy, wish me luck with not dropping too many of the balls I need to juggle. I guess that’s what you get for being brought up with the notion that since you can do it all, that’s what you’re supposed to do, too … No wonder people all suffer from burn-out syndrome these over-achieving days!

Stay sane, stitch readers, and remember to breathe.

The One About Being a Translator

… was Saturday last week. This picture was taken after an extraordinarily busy week during which I translated a huge number of pages, participated in two parents meets, worried about my mother in law who underwent major surgery and tried planning our summer around three book projects, one wedding, a trip to France and two families‘ (located on different continents) schedules …

The week after that was basically more of the same, and therefore mostly remarkable for offering the perspective of a Week With No Alarm Clock to follow. Not that it means I have a week off, but sleeping in is usually only happening on weekends, and I’m taking full advantage.

Unfortunately, the weather has been more rain than shine, less degrees than we hoped, and a chilly Easter to look forward to :-/. But we get to be in the country, so we can run outside as soon as the rain stops. Also, we’re here with our friends, and that is a treat whether the weather be good or bad.

And now for something completely different! People have mentioned that I never really talk about my work on here. It’s sort of true, I mostly discuss crafts and cooking and stuff that’s on my mind. This may give the impression that that’s all I’m about, and since nothing could be further from the truth, let me put that in perspective a bit.

As you guys know, I’m a copywriter turned translator. My former and my current jobs are similar in terms of requiring you to become familiar with a new subject matter in record time, enough to be able to credibly pretend you know what you’re talking about anyway. In copywriting, that’s usually all you really do. Obviously it helps if you love words and know how to be witty, but it rarely goes any deeper than that, mostly because lot of bomb-ass ideas get trashed before they ever see the light outside of the dungeons of the art department.

Translating is different. When I translate nonfiction, I learn so much from my authors – and if I’m lucky enough to translate something I love, like a cookbook or a crafts book, it all adds to my own expertise. This past month has seen me buckle down and learn about sewing. And it’s great! All the yummy new words I learned, all the insight on fabrics and patterns and needles and utensils. I had FUN!

When translating fiction, it’s great to transpose a whole world, a culture, the main characters, and to make the readers get them, or even like them. When the readers don’t really notice they’re reading a translation, I’d say I did a good job.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a weakness for (gay) young adults fiction, and the millennials in particular. So far, I’ve translated two novels by Santino Hassell, both set in the very diverse gay culture of New York. The first book, Sutphin Boulevard, was well received and got good reviews, even a little love for the translator, which was such a relief because as a hetero cis-gender female translator, I was apprehensive as to whether I had done the work justice. It’s a deeply romantic love story, but in parts kind of dark. Not an easy read at all, but it’s got great protagonists, interesting character development and (because it’s Santino) some very explicit and highly emotional sex scenes.

The second book, Sunset Park, came out mid March, and oddly, it seems the reviewers have little patience with the woes and struggles of younger people. Why then would they even buy a book like that, I wonder. Just go for the grown-up books section and skirt everything that reeks of coming of age, finding out who you are and what you’d like to do with your life, falling in love and discovering your (sexual) identity… I’m sure Sunset will find its readers anyway, because it’s a great story, and very very funny.

When translating the first book, I struggled with finding the right tone for the sex scenes – ultimately, in German, we don’t have the playful and fun vocab English has for anything sex related. German tends to be either overly romantic, off-puttingly clinical or flat out vulgar. It was a challenge, but in the end I guess I pulled it off. The second book taught me (among other things) about Grindr, the gay sex dating app. I liked the pragmatism, the acronyms, the lingo … the whole system was fascinating to me. And since Santino doesn’t do sex for sex’s sake in his novels, there’s a very intense Grindr chat in one of the first chapters that is absolutely crucial for the whole story arc, and I just needed to nail that (no pun whatsoever intended). So now I know my way around that (not entirely sure what good it’s going to do me – again, straight cis-gender female – but it was cool to explore that parallel universe anyway.) And of course, translating two characters who are both funny as all hell, snarky and sweet, one with a Latino background who sounds a little ‚hood, and the other a clean-cut white boy from Connecticut who went to Brown. I found both of them equally lovable, and they’re my favorite couple in that ‚verse so far.

I’m supposed to work on the third book over the summer. It’s about two guys who’re both almost 40, so the most adult people he’s written about so far. We’ll see how I do with them.

Until then, I have the great honor of chipping in on the translation of a true cookbook classic – not supposed to say which one yet, but it’s huge, and I’m loving it SO MUCH!

So there, now I have talked about work – to those of you who thought all I do is bring up kids and crochet and knit, sorry to disappoint, not that kind of lady.

But I do do these things all the time anyway, because I’d go insane if I didn’t. Here’s some things I made over the past few weeks:

Look, the soft pink socks for Sweet C. are done :-).

As are two new sofa cushions to add a splash of color to the solemn grey.

Voilà, the latest glittery sock creation for my daughter.

This was enlightening – can you believe I made all of those…?

Signing off tonight (for it’s late!) with a series of my teenager creating street art with garbage. Love the way his mind works :-).

Happy Easter, everyone – let’s hope the Easter Bunny will be generous this year!