or "Mein Kind ist gerade sehr anstrengend" - that's what I told Herr Winter from Karlsruher Kind when he called today to ask if I wanted to change my ad. I asked him how he was doing and he replied "I'm fine, but you don't sound all too well". It's that obvious.

I honestly haven't got a clue about what could be wrong with her. Is she unhappy? I don't think so, she smiles a lot (cue photo evidence):

although behind each smile you can clearly see the next mischief being planned. This smile says, "Come closer so I can grab your camera and leave my greasy croissant fingerprints all over your lens." No, you say? She just loves mummy and likes having her picture taken? Then behold the photo evidence no. 2:

I suppose, as long as I can joke about it, I'm doing fine. But sometimes I doubt myself. I doubt that I can take another sprained joint, another escape from the family abode; another wooden board she toppled over herself, another screaming fit after I stopped her from playing with wasps. Do you know what I mean? Do you? Because all of the above happened during the last three days. It's the intensity I can't cope with. I know all toddlers are unbearable, but they tend to take it easier.

This has got to be bad karma. It's the only logical explanation. I used to steal books when I was younger. And CD's. And once, I stole a perfume with Periša on our school trip to Athens. It was a male perfume, and I didn't like it all that much, I just stole it for the kick of it. And now I'm paying for it. With interest. Huge interest.

I know very few people who don't use their Flickr stream as a photoblog. Avoiding to shoot your life isn't easy - the people you take pictures of are people you know, the places on your photos are places that manage to leave an impression on you. Some professional photographers upload photos they get paid for, but for the greater part of my contacts, Flickr is about themselves.

One cannot help but notice, however, that for some, Flickr is a very private place. I also went through a phase of intensive self-portraiture during a trying period of my life. Still, even then, I let the pictures speak for themselves. Some Flickr users tend to aggressively bare their souls in public. Very often, they're compulsive self-portraitists and attention junkies. Pictures are accompanied by stream-of-conscioussness passages, poems, videos, a teenage scrapbook of emotions. Does the verbal pat on the shoulder from a stranger have a therapeutic effect? Let's suppose it does. We need compassion in our times of sorrow or uncertainty, even from people we don't know. But there's a particular breed of young female photographers who tend to look the same on every self-portrait: fragile, glamorous, sensitive, delicate, mysterious, but always half-naked and always beautiful. Naturally, they get hundreds of comments - people swooning over their beauty, yet not forgetting to compliment their artistic integrity and savoir-faire. A very addictive mixture of attention, I agree. So addictive, that some of them won't settle for the average 150 comments per photo, but sometimes repost the picture 12 hours later for whichever part of the planet is currently waking up - to keep their fans from the other side of the world updated in case they missed the original posting. I've rarely come across something so ridiculous.

What's even more ridiculous is people's tendency to take Flickr far too seriously. If your mission on the Internet is to seek attention, don't be surprised if the feedback you get is not always positive. Among thousands of people you attract, there's bound to be someone with an opinion you don't want to hear. Learn to deal with it. Do not delete each comment that hits a soft spot. I had to laugh yesterday when a girl (very pretty, very popular) had deleted the comment she hadn't liked and then replied to the deleted comment with the words "As for the comment I deleted, I just wanted to let you know..." - the online equivalent of talking to someone with hands over ears. The best way to avoid suffering personal insults is to avoid being personal. Let me be blunt: I don't want to see the fiftieth picture of your photoshopped arse-cum-frilly knickers and then listen to you whine after someone dares to notice that such curves can hardly be true to life. And by the way, either put on some clothes or bare it all - Flickr has become the Mecca of tedious soft porn. Save your pseudo-diagnosis for your shrink. The general public doesn't give a shit about your struggle, they're just waiting for the next blurred nipple, popcorn in hand. If you're so honest with the world, show us your face without make-up or hair in a state of lesser perfection.

All of this coming from a frustrated mother of a toddler who hardly ever wears make-up anymore and whose hair is never perfect. Maybe I'm a little bit envious. But I kind of have a life, however unglamorous. Not that I actually care about what others are uploading; as far as I'm concerned, feel free to treat the public to a photo-story of you humping a monkey, just spare us the hypocrisy if somebody begs to differ.

I'm definitely getting down to grips with the stuff that needs to be done for the exhibition. Thanks to Julie, today I got an offer for mounting and laminating the prints. My original plan was to buy "clip" frames and custom-made passpartouts and frame the prints myself. Even with the cheapest of frames, this would have cost me an arm and a leg (I am paying for printing and framing out of my own pocket). Not to mention the time and nerves it would take to do this properly. And now, for less money I'm getting someone else to do it and make it look more stylish and professional than anything you can put together on your dining room table.

Things that remain to be done: get the photos printed. Until now, I've had my photos printed by the online service pixum. I'm satisfied with the quality and the prices, I just need to have the files test-printed first because I never know what the colours are going to look like on paper. I process my photos on a laptop with an unreliable screen. This screen has recently been calibrated and I'm not sure if the pictures as I see them now are actually closer to what the prints will be like or not (before the calibration, the colours on screen were significantly less saturated than the end result on paper). I would then need to process the photos again and fix the colours, if necessary. It's all very boring and confusing. Digital photography is such a pain in the arse.

I also need to buy appropriate self-adhesive hangers but that's about it. As expected, the most challenging part will be photo selection. It's not like I have hundreds to choose from. And I don't want to scrape together just anything that fits the theme. Not as easy as you'd think. Anyway. I've decided to have the photos printed in A3. It's a pretty small format but having in mind that space is an issue, I think bigger prints would look ridiculous and pretentious at Senfkorn. By the way, the show will be called Karlsruhe verjüngt sich and the opening is on 18th September. Hurrah and huzzah.

About the photo: A candidate for the exhibition, kindergarten Aufwind in City Park. The lack of children and the hazy light make it look very post-apocalyptic. Not sure that's what I wanted, but there it is.

...as my capacities are down to 20% at best when the temperatures rise above 25º C. I'm overpowered by the omnipresent stickiness. The blinds are drawn, the fan is on, two showers a day are not quite enough.

Here's what I've been up to (apart from suffering, obviously)... I've been trying to devise a way to print out photos for the exhibition without spending a fortune on frames, passepartouts and the prints themselves. This is an on-going endeavour - for now, I can only treat you to one of the picutres that are more likely than not to be featured in the selection. It's called An Olive in Durlach and was taken last week.

I need to get busy finding inspiration for photos from City Park. It's a challenging task. The settlement is so new it has no identity or atmosphere. Because one needs to shoot something, one risks falling into the dreary trap of sterile and soulless modern architecture photography which is significantly closer to geometry than to art. Not that I have anything against modern architecture. I just fail to see why anyone would want to take pictures of it.

I'm reading Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff. Just finished watching the second season of Breaking Bad (excellent) and starting second season of True Blood (so far indigestible). Miki's got a new job. Una's got new character traits. Unwelcome ones. There are only so many tantrums I can take in a day so forgive me for sounding blasé. It's not her, it's the weather.

Reading used to be my favourite thing. "Cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels"... and books. Fiction. In English. All sorts. Be it genre or artsy-fartsy, old or new, I'd read whatever seemed remotely interesting. This ecclecticism is also present in my music taste, but the literature I like is even more messed up. Back in the day, I'd read about three novels a month. Maybe because we didn't have television in the old flat. Oh, happy days.

But then motherhood changed everything. During the first year, I read one book. It was an utter disaster (the decline of my reading habit, not the book; the book was Martin Amis' London Fields and it was pretty great). Then I decided to make myself read and instead of spending pointless hours on the internet during Una's afternoon nap, I'd read. I'd go earlier to bed to be able to read a little before falling asleep. I'd read on the toilet (come on, you do too!). And ever so slowly, I began catching up.

I'm so excited rediscovering books that I tend to think everything I read is good (well, the obvious rubbish can't fool me, but apart from that). I'm not sure that's a good thing and who cares if it's not. In the last few months I've read:

. Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

I love Palahniuk and I enjoyed this book although it's not in the same class as Choke and Fight Club. But it's not aiming to be. It's very dry, just like a nice Martini. Full of laugh-out-loud refrences to the clichés of porn industry. Can't wait to grab hold of his latest novel.

. Hold Tight by Harlan Coben

I didn't know who Harlan Coben was when I bought this book. I was buying the Palahniuk at the bookstore and among the very meagre English books offer, this struck me as interesting, judging from the blurb. Don't judge from the blurb, it's bad for your teeth. The book is crap and I cringe whenever I see it taking valuable space on my overcrowded bookshelf. But I'm not the kind of person who'd throw a book into the dustbin. I'll sell it for 1 Euro on Ebay. It's a shame I can't sell it for less.

. Tajna doline piramida by Emir Imamović Pirke (in Bosnian)

Hugely enjoyable and funny. Ought to be translated into English (don't look at me!). A hilarious story about the "discovery" of pyramids in central Bosnia (based on true events, because such things are possible in Bosnia). The story of the hoo-ha in the Bosnian town at the foot of the "pyramid" and the changes its inhabitants are going through in face of archeological and historical fame is underlined by the good, but not as brilliant story of the main character's relationship with a successful journalist. Loved the Bosnian colloquialisms of my childhood.

. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I love Waters even more than Palahniuk although I'm probably the only person in the world who loves them both. The novel is fun to read and the ghost-story element is truly chilling (especially if you've recently had things mysteriously disappearing from your living room) but the "there's something funny going on"- "no, there isn't" routine between the witness and the skeptic is tiring because it's repeated ad nauseam. It kind of hi-jacks the plot. Shame about that because she's a brilliant writer.

. Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

I won't go into my personal reasons for being pissed off at Ishiguro. But I am. I think he's one of the greatest writers alive today. But I didn't like his last novel Never Let Me Go. So as you can imagine, I obtained his latest offering with mixed feelings. It's a collection of five stories that have a common theme of music and one of five is perfect, another is excellent, while the other three are good, but not good enough for Ishiguro. Nevertheless I was thrilled to discover that he has a wicked sense of humour and spent reading the masterpiece that is the story Come Rain Or Come Shine with my face buried in a pillow so as not to wake Una by laughing out loud.

The books I expect to arrive tomorrow are Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff (recommended by my internet pal John Self; take a look at his excellent literary blog The Asylum) and The Act of Roger Murgatroyd by Gilbert Adair. When I grow up, I'll change my name to Murgatroyd.