the best things that have happened today are:
coffee and super yummy apple cake at surprisingly unsmokey wohnzimmer
savorying the pre-christmas new yorker (maybe i should get a subscription)
finding my house, bike and mailbox keys after having lost them for two days on my desk
the saddest thing that has happened is:
finishing "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" and missing christopher
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Monday, January 03, 2005
Denver airport. 4 something p.m. A few hours ago in the Aspen airport I listened to a mid-20's woman whine to her middle aged male companion about the inadequacy of their hotel room.
"But, I spent 5 G's on that room!"
"Yeah, but you go to bed so early and you know that me and Melissa are party girls. You could have at least got one of those suites with a separate living room."
"It woulda cost over $800 a night or been 30 minutes away. Then you would have had to walk. We had the best location, right downtown. You can't get a better location. That's why everbody wanted to come over all the time. They couldn't afford a room like ours."
"I'm just saying it could've been... Now I lost my water. I'm gonna buy another one."
She comes back.
"I hate it when you compare me to Amy. It is sooo insulting."
"I'm not comparing you."
"Like when I threw water on that guy. You said it was just like Amy. I mean that is like so insulting when you compare me to her."
Waiting to get off the plane a teenage daughter asks her dad.
"Are there legends of people surfing tsunamis?"
"No, people don't surf tsunamis."
"Yeah, but I think I heard about people like a long time ago. There was a legend about somebody surfing a tsunami."
I should've had more than one beer at the airport bar...
I was reading the New Yorker from the week of Christmas. One of the writers wrote about his childhood in Slovakia and his image of Germany. How, every time he was in Stuttgart he could only think of the World War II atrocities that had taken place even though the city was completely rebuilt. These atrocities seemed much more real for him than the current disasters occurring in the Middle East and Africa. It made me think about my feelings about WWII and living in Berlin. Somehow I have a morbid curiosity about the war and that history. It doesn't seem so long ago when you can see bullet holes in many of the buildings in Berlin. On the other hand, I wasn't born then. My parents weren't born then. My Jewish relatives identify with the Jews killed in WWII. I don't. Is that bad? Am I excusing people who are responsible for the horrible things done during the war? I feel guilty for not being angry or sad. I really don't feel anything about the war itself. Current politics are another story. I feel angry, guilty, sad and ashamed in regard to the "war" in Iraq, the over-consumption and mindless consumerism in the USA, the dominance of America in world politics and, and, and...
Yet, my life goes on as always. I am not affected by the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in a tsunami in Southeast Asia. Besides a few minutes when I worried that my father might be there, I haven't even thought about it that much. How can one comprehend a disaster and mass death like that? I have only known six dead people in my whole life. I didn't really feel anything about their deaths either. One is my grandpa. It just seemed like my grandpa hadn't come to visit for longer than usual. Another is my 4-H leader from when I was about 8 years old. I was afraid she would sit up in her coffin during the funeral and I was worried about my clothes because they weren't black. Then I saw someone else from the 4-H club in a magenta dress. The third dead person I know is an old man who used to lead my family on hikes in the mountains when we first moved to Colorado. They did a really bad make-up job on him for the wake. He looked purplish-pink.
"But, I spent 5 G's on that room!"
"Yeah, but you go to bed so early and you know that me and Melissa are party girls. You could have at least got one of those suites with a separate living room."
"It woulda cost over $800 a night or been 30 minutes away. Then you would have had to walk. We had the best location, right downtown. You can't get a better location. That's why everbody wanted to come over all the time. They couldn't afford a room like ours."
"I'm just saying it could've been... Now I lost my water. I'm gonna buy another one."
She comes back.
"I hate it when you compare me to Amy. It is sooo insulting."
"I'm not comparing you."
"Like when I threw water on that guy. You said it was just like Amy. I mean that is like so insulting when you compare me to her."
Waiting to get off the plane a teenage daughter asks her dad.
"Are there legends of people surfing tsunamis?"
"No, people don't surf tsunamis."
"Yeah, but I think I heard about people like a long time ago. There was a legend about somebody surfing a tsunami."
I should've had more than one beer at the airport bar...
I was reading the New Yorker from the week of Christmas. One of the writers wrote about his childhood in Slovakia and his image of Germany. How, every time he was in Stuttgart he could only think of the World War II atrocities that had taken place even though the city was completely rebuilt. These atrocities seemed much more real for him than the current disasters occurring in the Middle East and Africa. It made me think about my feelings about WWII and living in Berlin. Somehow I have a morbid curiosity about the war and that history. It doesn't seem so long ago when you can see bullet holes in many of the buildings in Berlin. On the other hand, I wasn't born then. My parents weren't born then. My Jewish relatives identify with the Jews killed in WWII. I don't. Is that bad? Am I excusing people who are responsible for the horrible things done during the war? I feel guilty for not being angry or sad. I really don't feel anything about the war itself. Current politics are another story. I feel angry, guilty, sad and ashamed in regard to the "war" in Iraq, the over-consumption and mindless consumerism in the USA, the dominance of America in world politics and, and, and...
Yet, my life goes on as always. I am not affected by the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in a tsunami in Southeast Asia. Besides a few minutes when I worried that my father might be there, I haven't even thought about it that much. How can one comprehend a disaster and mass death like that? I have only known six dead people in my whole life. I didn't really feel anything about their deaths either. One is my grandpa. It just seemed like my grandpa hadn't come to visit for longer than usual. Another is my 4-H leader from when I was about 8 years old. I was afraid she would sit up in her coffin during the funeral and I was worried about my clothes because they weren't black. Then I saw someone else from the 4-H club in a magenta dress. The third dead person I know is an old man who used to lead my family on hikes in the mountains when we first moved to Colorado. They did a really bad make-up job on him for the wake. He looked purplish-pink.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
for the second time i was hit on the head by an icicle! then i stomped the snow off my flip-flops.
dreading the middle seat for 10 hours between screaming kids. dreading the security searches and the immigration lines. dreading the dry air on the plane and dreading the grayness of berlin. dreading also-work tomorrow.
emma's travelling clothes are like library books that she uses for awhile and then puts back into circulation. why am i so attached to my stuff? this time i have a huge suitcase and a bag of books. it's always the books i can't separate myself from.
dreading the middle seat for 10 hours between screaming kids. dreading the security searches and the immigration lines. dreading the dry air on the plane and dreading the grayness of berlin. dreading also-work tomorrow.
emma's travelling clothes are like library books that she uses for awhile and then puts back into circulation. why am i so attached to my stuff? this time i have a huge suitcase and a bag of books. it's always the books i can't separate myself from.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
This morning my head hurts, as it has every morning since I've been here. I am sipping lemon ginger tea while watching the snow, dark mountains, bare trees, and sky change from rose colored to a full range of yellows. I am pleased with myself because I managed to cut off my dreams of past lives at 7 a.m., that is three and a half more hours later than yesterday. If I continue at this rate, I will wake up at 10:30 tomorrow, which will be 18:30 at my home in Berlin.
Friday, December 24, 2004
home?
Cornstarch squeaks and crunches under my feet. I feel like I am in a movie set for "Fargo". Surreal. No cars, no trains, no subway, no cobblestones or pavement, no cell phones, no street signs or public trash cans, no buildings, houses or shops. Well, there is one house, and that is where my mother lives. I am struggling to reconcile the knowledge that I grew up in a place similar to this, and the overwhelming feeling that I am an alien on a foreign planet.
Friday, November 19, 2004
pot
Can I tell you how scared of pot I am right now? I just had a talk with my roommate about it and she told me about an ex-boyfriend of hers didn't have a fridge (because his ex-girlfriend took the old one) and started everyday by saying he would go out and buy one. Instead of doing it, he would go down to the bar, have a beer and smoke a joint. Apparently, he had had a really difficult life and my roomie maintains that he wasn't strong enough to deal with it. He got together with her because "one thing led to another", had two affairs for the same reason, and basically lived his life like so many potheads-just hanging out, ready to be carried by the next wave that came his direction.
Many of my friends and acquaintances smoke pot regularly, and I smoke when I am with them. They are wonderful, talented people who have traveled a lot, are caring and sensitive, so am I. they have unrealized ambitions, and so do I. This is beginning to sound like a fat lady joke. I have gotten myself out of corporate American and the 9 to 5 world in order to have more time to be creative and live a healthier, more relaxed life. Is it working? Or am I becoming a failure? Am I going to get caught in the sticky web of druuugs and lose all of the drive I ever had, while being seduced by that fuzzy warm forgetfulness that lets smart people forget they are smart and remember how much they need to chill man. I have a hard enough time motivating myself to make art, I don’t need pot to make it harder. I am hereby swearing off pot… until the next party.
Many of my friends and acquaintances smoke pot regularly, and I smoke when I am with them. They are wonderful, talented people who have traveled a lot, are caring and sensitive, so am I. they have unrealized ambitions, and so do I. This is beginning to sound like a fat lady joke. I have gotten myself out of corporate American and the 9 to 5 world in order to have more time to be creative and live a healthier, more relaxed life. Is it working? Or am I becoming a failure? Am I going to get caught in the sticky web of druuugs and lose all of the drive I ever had, while being seduced by that fuzzy warm forgetfulness that lets smart people forget they are smart and remember how much they need to chill man. I have a hard enough time motivating myself to make art, I don’t need pot to make it harder. I am hereby swearing off pot… until the next party.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
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