« September 2007 | Main

LATEST NEWS- I have a new essay published in the Washington Post!

Hi. My name is Johanna Bailey and I'm a freelance writer. I have also been known to write under the name Anna Dilemna. For the past 5 years my husband and I have been traveling the world and having all kinds of interesting experiences that range from the enlightening to the humiliating (often I am humiliated and enlightened simultaneously). From 2003-2006, we lived in Tokyo, Japan and this is where our 3 year old son Nicolas was born. In Tokyo I sang ABCs for a bunch of rich Burberry plaid clad Japanese kids who's parents were hoping to turn them into geniuses by the age of 3. I taught them words such as "smelter" and "gorgonzola" which I'm sure will come in handy in their future as child prodigies.

Next we spent a year living in Lausanne, Switzerland and although I missed Japan a lot, I didn't miss being called "Sir”, a frequent occurrence in Japan. In 2008 we picked up our family and moved again, this time to Madrid, Spain. I like chocolate, Thai food, taking baths, drinking coffee, writing, crafting, traveling and reading. I don't like wearing high heels, action movies, judgmental asses and eating things that still have eyes on them. My husband likes traveling, photography, picnics, TV shows that feature animals, and tucking his pajama bottoms into his socks. He doesn't like chocolate which is very strange. Nicolas likes cars, attending birthday parties, obsessively listening to the Mamas and the Papas and wearing black dress shoes from Payless Shoe Source every day. He also likes performing Broadwayesque shows with the protagonists being two toothbrushes named “Rebecca” and “Jonah.” Nico does not like wearing hats.

Changes Coming

I've been such a bad bad blogger lately and I've decided that some major changes must be made. The details are currently being worked out but here's the general plan:

1. This page will become my "business page" where I will have links to published articles, a small bio, etc

2. I will start a new typepad blog which will become my personal blog. The new blog will be linked from the main one so if you so desire, you may still find it. The idea is for the personal blog to serve as more of a place to jot down stuff that's going on with Nico, life in Switzerland, etc. I know that one of the reasons I've been hesitant to post much in recent months is due to feeling badly about not having more time to compose the sorts of stories that I used to. Perhaps if I have a new place to write things, I'll be less self-conscious about posting mundane shit such as my grocery list or what Nico ate for lunch that day or the latest most adorably adorable thing that he's said. I really really do want to keep track of this stuff (not so much the grocery lists maybe) and I haven't been doing a very good job lately even though I've bought several notebooks that were supposed to be expressly for cute Nico utterings. Come to think of it, usually the grocery lists wind up in the notebooks so at least some thing's being documented...

3. The last thing is that I'm toying with the idea of not having comments on the new blog. This isn't because I haven't enjoyed all the comments immensely over the past few years. Rather, I just think it'll be easier for me to feel like it's a family/personal blog if they're not there. At the same time, I'd love to hear from anyone that would like to send an email.


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