Britta's Letters from her life divided between city-life in German's capital Berlin and life in a Bavarian village

Monday 26 November 2012

Return of the Drama Queen

Dear You
Honestly, I had thought that she had disappeared some time ago - of course with a bang, not with a whimper. Oh no: no early retirement for my Drama Queen.
Yes, I'm speaking of my Alter Ego. (You might blot out 'alter').
Like all those old rockbands she gives a revival tour, promising it will be her last (you bet!).
I shall get wary when words rise in my mind like: "Awful! Catastrophe! Core melt accident!"
I heard them, last week, when I discovered that Google on Blogspot (which is the same) flatly refused to print even one more photo of mine. First I thought it only concerned "Britta's Happiness of the Day."
"Awful!", I thought, but then, being of a Pollyanna-nature, I tried to see the hand of the Tao in it (no later than that I should have become Very Wary). "You were thinking about giving it up already", I told myself with what sounded like my grown-up voice. "So what?"
Then I tried to load up a photo on Britta's Letters from Berlin: Red Card. Finish. ("It is so UNFAIR!", howled my Drama Queen, "they didn't even warn you!")
I sat down and wrote a post - here - and DQ dictated the title: "I NEED YOUR HELP!" (she seldom uses other than capital letters). An hour after posting it I had cooled down. I remembered that I am no longer 17. I thought of a quote from adorable Sophia Loren: "For me - and I think for many other women too - the 30th birthday was the most problematic. At this age Youth lies definitely behind you. You can do the most wonderful things, but never again somebody will say about you: "Yes, and yet she is still so young!" 
Oops! So I rushed to my computer and deleted my dramatic message. I told me with a stern parental voice that I can google on my own - and look up myself how to enter Picasa.
And I found two things I had completely overlooked in my dramatic haze:
1. no need to get excited about Google breaking my data protection. Or better: too late - from the moment I used blogger I had given my consent that they might surf through my hardware disk (HOWL!) and - though I still own the copyright - they might give my pictures to others, advertisement and so on.(Only FBI does need a search warrant - Google doesn't. And that is in their terms "irrevocable".).
2. and I had seen everything blurred: when I read that after using up your free 1GB, you have to buy the next 25 GB, I 'saw' that it will cost me about 25 Dollars a month ("NeverI already pay for my website!") - but looking closely there stood: it will cost a little bit over 2 Dollars per month - I think I can manage that :-)
       Drama Queen doesn't give up easily: "Think of the SCANDAL with the shop window mannequins!" (the newspaper wrote that they have now cameras inside to watch the customers). I thought about it - hope I look my best in their pics and wonder into which age-group they will assort me :-)
So DQ left, sulking. Not without giving me a beautiful poetic image (see: Drama Queen is very imaginative, full of ideas, a master of putting things into the spotlight, and of the art of timing - we had the last Sunday before Advent commemorating the dead). So she said:
"Might be a good metaphor for your death."
"WHAT?"
"Well: think of your life as a photo-blog like Happiness. Beautiful. And then, without a forewarning, God says: "You have used up your 1 Gigabyte." And you might howl as you like: Life is over."
She lowered her voice and whispered in the raunchy voice of Mae West:
"Hope you had a lot of  fun before!"

10 comments:

  1. Oh, dear Britta! I think I may be in the same predicament. With the old publisher mode in Blogger, you had fair warning of how much storage capacity was left. Now there is no little meter to give you an idea. I've been blogging now for more than four years, so my existence as Walk2write may have reached its conclusion--unless I pay up, of course. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

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    1. Dear Walk2write,
      four years blogging: that really is an achievment! The sentence "There is no free lunch" was quoted by my son too: he said "You either pay in data or money." Now it might be that I have to pay in both - though in small coins :-)

      Delete
  2. 'hope I look my best in their pics and wonder into which age-group they will assort me'

    This line had me giggling with glee but the whole post has me smiling. You know how to get the best out of pure drudgery!

    Britta, I'm sorry that Blogger has been so vile to you but DQ is d-cutie. :)

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    1. Dear Suze,
      I'm happy to make you giggle! I like to write that way - that's why I am a member of the E.F.Benson Society - makes one giggle, Fred's books...

      Delete
  3. Britta-"Far across the distance, and spaces between us, You have come to show you go on"...I was so pleased to see you at h-bone.

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    1. Dear Scott,
      good to see you here! Of course I will be on h-bone, love it! (Though it would be easier when I would saw you here as a follower on my blog-list - at the moment I have to jump to 'Happiness', and I think of giving that up now - already cut back 'Gardening in High-Heels'.

      Delete
  4. Saw your deleted post through Google reader, hope it is all figured out by now. You are not the only one who has heard from Google that their account was full. A couple other bloggers have said the same thing.

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  5. Dear Janet,
    I have to apologize again for those Google-posts that - while I deleted them - appeared on your account. I still don't know how that could happen - or how I can stop it - because I fear there will come even more - as soon as I find time I will delete a lot of "You are witty and pretty". Maybe the use of the possibility to enlage pictures for a blog has something to do with getting quick to 1 Gigabyte. Well - it isn't an archive - so I delete. (Without giving up a blog - who knows: 'As my Whimsy takes me'.)

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  6. Oh the fine, fine print! Our lives are so full of it and we sign away our privacy on social media because no-one can read, or has the inclination, to read, let alone understand, all of it, in the rush to communicate and stay connected! x

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  7. Dear Penny,
    the fine print indeed - of course I don't want to read a book with about 1231 pages only to know how my cellphone (might) work...And putting things literally into fine print they do on patient information leaflets and cosmetics and convenient food (which I seldom buy) - that is also really annoying. Well - I hope I managed now with the blog(s).

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