Sometimes I think I want a soulmate. Not necessarily a boyfriend or anything like that, but a soulmate. I have a lot of people who complement me, balance me out, are obtuse to my acute--or vice versa if you like. But, sometimes, I want someone exactly like me, who can actually finish my sentences and not think they can and who's already put on the song I was aiming to play and who already has that restaurant in mind. Boy or girl it doesn't matter. Someone who wants to build a fort and crawl under it and watch movies and eat milk duds and popcorn. Somone who drinks lots and lots of coffee and who buys pretentious journals and then writes in them and who speculates about exercise but does it willy nilly. We would take a lot of polaroid pictures and arrange them in funny patterns and we'd have a favorite place and we'd have a litany of inside jokes like that place with the guy with the thing and the thing and hahahahahahaha. And somehow we wouldn't compete for attention. We wouldn't be interchangeable. You'd want both of us. And we'd ride around on a scooter together and our helmets would have headphones on the inside and we'd sing to the same song at the same volume. We'd always back each other up--we'd go down kicking and punching for each other. And sometimes we'd look back and remember (faintly, distantly, almost like a burp of food long since eaten) what lonely felt like, what lonely looked like, who lonely was. But it wouldn't last long.

I don't find my life particularly interesting these days. A lot of biking a lot of water a lot of people. I biked to a lake in the middle of the big forest in west Berlin and swam among many many naked people and had a good laugh and an even better swim and went home. I ate an enormous delicious hamburger. I drank a bunch of beer at a bar where, once upon a time, a lady fell down, but I wasn't there when it happened. I didn't get to say goodbye to a friend, and I'm still not sure why. On Saturday, I went to the north German shore, the Baltic Sea (i believe) and laid on the beach all day watching a sand frisbee tournament, throwing a little with my friend and sleepingsleepingsleeping. I'm reading A Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius. For those of you who haven't read it: it's a little heavy at times. For those of you who have read it: it's heavy at times, huh? The end of Saturday brought a minor exhaustion/PMS/hunger-caused breakdown and I went home and slept it off. I like being alone in my apartment. I'm spending the rest of the summer at work figuring this Fulbright thing out and I've decided to go for it. Why not? My only concern is my sister and being away from her in a foreign country for so long. I don't want to repeat what my dad did. I don't know what I owe her and what I don't. August comes tomorrow. Everytime a new month arrives I do a mini self-evalution and move on. I have a short story I've been trying to finish for 5 months. I can't seem to give it any momentum. I like the idea of momentum. That energy adds to other energy and compels something to keep moving forward. A physics teacher would kill me for that definition, but I just like that idea that if you work hard enough, you can keep yourself moving. That's all I'm trying to do.

I am having a panic attack. I was thinking about ways that I could come back to Germany and study the urban development of Berlin and the Fulbright program seems pretty cool because it would ennable me to work at an NGO that is studying Agenda 21 (sustainable social, economic and environmental development in Berlin). But, when I started looking into this program I realized a bunch of things that have sent me spiraling out of control:
1. i should have been preparing for this program long before now, which means that it's not NOT an option, but it'll be stressful to get the application in on time
2. my coursework at Stanford is an idiotic jumble of things that don't make sense. why am I an IR major? what do my classes mean in the long run? I have no practical knowledge of anything. I know about women's health in far away countries and stupid democracy things and I dont know what I was thinking and I completely wasted my REALLY EXPENSIVE education.
3. no professors at Stanford really know me because I've been taking such a random mischling of classes so I dont really have good people to write me recommendations and the best way to fix that would have been to write a thesis but I bailed on that at the last moment for whatever reason-fear, time, family, whatever.
4. everyone seems like they have their shit together. i know its false, but it seems like it.
5. i should have been taking urban studies and environmental classes all along.
6. i'm going to die poor.

$160,000 and all I know how to do is throw a ping pong ball in a red cup. some of the time.

when i'm old

When i'm old i'll leave my hair down, huge and gray, and my necklaces will be huge and beaded and thwap against my chest and my shirts will be huge and look like ponchos with slits for my arms in colors like burnt sienna and eggplant and aqua and i'll wear leggings and clogs. I'll laugh just as loud as i do now and i'll befriend teenagers and drink tea with them at my favorite bakery but i won't be jealous that they're teenagers and i'm old because all that ("that" being adolesence and tight jeans and an epic road of uncertainty ahead) will have it's appropriate place in my memory, next to my dancing shoes and my dad's old Nikon camera). I'll have a best friend that i see day to day and we walk slowly down the street and stop at anything of interest and block the fast-movers behind us and stir them up. I will be at peace with whatever things i have done and how they turned out and i'll go back and read all those books that, when i was 20, i said i would but never got to. I will forgive my father. I'll have new scars inside and out and i'll outline them with marker to see if they are growing. And my sister will be around me, maybe she'll be that said-best friend. I'll knit things for people: hats, scarves, blankets, even socks, maybe slippers. I'll wear big sunglasses and have loopy, grandma penmanship and i'll travel back to Germany and make all those claims about "remembering when" and "being there" and Youth. But no nostalgia. I'll travel back in time. My grandkids will canonize me, because grandparents are actually Grandparents and they inhabit a world that no one understands. I wonder how we're able to continue to store so many memories, but our brains never get bigger. Maybe it's proof of how little of our brains we actually use. Maybe if we got too old, we'd have to erase old ones to make room for new ones. A normal brain looks like a pair of lungs with a butterfly in the middle; a brain with Alzheimers looks like a snowflake. I'll write a book about a singer with a one-word name who moved from Nigeria to London and had a couple hits and disappeared for awhile but some people still remember her. And i'll wonder about people from many years before and i might call them up. I'll look back on a short period of firsts and then a longer period of seconds, thirds, fourths and many-times-over; but when i'm old will be the first time that i'll be able to comfortably, un-self-consciously and liberating-ly leave my hair down.

Someone is practicing their violin on a Sunday morning and it makes me ready to start the day.

Manchmal, ich hasse Berlin

Today:

Got up at noon, at lunch but couldn't finish it. I hate not being able to finish something I paid for solely for the reason that when I am hungry two hours later I always visualize the uneaten piece of food sitting on my plate and I want it back and in my belly.

Drank way too much liquid.

Got a 40 EURO TICKET for having my bike on the S-Bahn without a pass for it. Okay, this is a dumb thing to be stressed about but it drives me up the wall. When shit like this happens, I am embarressed to say that sometimes I can't help but think that the world is against me somehow (weeeeird sentence). So now, I have to pay 40 Euros on top of the fact that I have to pay some other amount so that I can buy a ticket to legally bring my bike on the S-Bahn. Why didn't the evil ticket-giver-guy have more sympathy and realize that I'm a poor college student who's on her own and doesn't have that kind of money to throw around? It's not worth gettting worked up over. I'm just bummed.

There's a giant anti-Israel War protest/parade outside right now. I can't really understand which side the group supports because there are Lebanese and Israeli flags (as well as German flags) everywhere, but all I know is that "Bush=Number 1 Terrorist" and "Stopp Kriege." I'm impressed, though, with how fast they got this together. In the US this would take us a good month to organize any sort of legitimate rally. Was anyone reading this at the Bush rally at Stanford in the spring? That was the most pathetic rally I've ever seen. As per usual, and to top the whole thing off, Stanford feminists had to turn it into their rally. "RESPECT MY BUSH, RESPECT MY BUSH." I respect the fact that you're annoying.

Off to Potsdam and deliciously amazing beer that's better than any I've had in my whole life. I don't know if that's saying much or not.

I'm going to move to Germany and be a construction worker. They get to wear overalls and big boots. The word for a pair of overalls is Germany is Overall. And you only say Overalls if you're referring to more than one pair of overalls. Trippy.

Things I Think at 3am

• sweat is obnoxious.
• why has "high school" become and adjective? like, "that was so high school." Chances are, if I did it in high school, I'm going to do it now. Only now, I'm going to be an elitist jerk about it.
• it's not okay when old men pass me when i'm jogging, regardless of what marathon they're training for. This may be the hottest day of the year, but i'm running you down, grandpa.
• it seriously was the hottest day of the year in Germany. And the hottest month in a century. Some guy at work was like "well, the century is quite young.." In A century, not THE century.
• i was watching Meet Joe Black today in German and the girl in it squints her eyes too much and Brad Pitt has frosted hair, or some bull shit blonde thing going on and...uninteresting
• are we still calling them "wife-beaters," really? i can't think of anything else to call them, but that's a little out of control.
• how did the black parents keep their kids from jumping on the bed?
• they put velcro on the ceiling
• that's not a racist joke, it's funny if you have hair like mine
• i still hate my hair
• i miss Stanford, which is an unusual feeling, not because i don't love it, but in my three years there I haven't been away from it enough to miss it. now i am away and I miss it.
• sleeping next to people is really nice and i wish that were my life now.
• good nite/night/knight
  

Jackie and I had a good talk last night. I think we cleared some of the stagnant air that surrounds us/has been surrounding us for awhile. I think the problem is that I always expect to be judged by her and Im always surprised when shes not actually silently judging me. So, I think I sit around and judge my own actions, then project that Jackie's judging them, then get pissed at her for doing so, then re-evaluate everything when I realize its all in my head. My head is an exhausting place, man. I just dont know why Im so grumpy all the time. Things irk me unnecessarily--other people eating (refer to earlier blog), the heat, being tired, almost losing my camera, etcetcetcetc--then I hate the fact that these things irk me, so I just get madder. Sometimes I feel like I walk around our apartment like a grumpy phantom. Like a specter. And I hate that Ive changed so much since freshman year. I hate all the things that have gone on. As much as I hate "vapid" people (or whatever elitist term) I sometimes admire their ability to act without thinking. And, by thinking I mean analyzing. I wonder how Jackie lets me be me all the time when I cant even let me be myself. And I dont know why shes always so patient when I'm such a knife.

My boss unintentionally called me 'fake' yesterday and I dont think he realized that he hurt my feelings.

It would be pretty sweet to take a vacation in someone else's body. Not like, "oh, now Im experiencing someone else's life for a day," no. Like, Im going to be this other person literally on vacation so I don't have all my thoughts in my head and I can enjoy this beach. Duh, everyone has problems and you cant escape them, but what I mean is, uh, being someone else and not having their problems to think about; but, then again, if the whole thing is about escaping thinking about things, and being able to be someone else for a day would probably imply that I had enough power (or a genie!) to delete my own thinking for a day, then maybe I just want to be me, but on a beach, not thinking about shit. THAT is why people take drugs. I get it.

Dave (Borrelli, there are ENTIRELY too many Daves in my life right now, Im thinking about cutting some loose): if youre going to require that I write a blog, you better write some fuckn comments.

Area of Little Wind

A weeks worth of house guests are now gone. Regardless of the messy kitchen and the vagrant lifestyle, Ill miss having activity and distraction.

Back to the doldrums.

Ive figured it out--Hyperacusis!!!

I have Hyperacusis.
Well, thats a bit of an exaggeration. I have "Selective Soft Sound Sensitivity." Lets start from the beginning:

Ever since I was a little kid I couldnt bear to hear my mother chew gum in the car with me. Shed ask me to fish two (who chews TWO) sticks of gum out of her purse and I would reluctantly do so, knowing that once I did, she'd gnash and pop and squeak and smack her gum all over the place. My sister did it too. And my dad. It got to the point that I almost couldn't eat with my family. I literally felt (and feel) stress in the upper part of my ribcage anytime I hear someone eating.

And everyone eats loudly. Its just a fact of life. Like I said, my whole family eats loudly, all my best friends eat loudly. I once found someone who had the same innate intolerance to loud eating as I did; I thought I'd found my soulmate. Seriously. And the bitch of it is, I know its my deal, not theirs, but even people who know I have this problem think it's kind of funny that Chadé doesn't like smacking. Here, smack smack smack, does that drive you crazy? YES. It drives me up the wall. I dont think you're funny. Im going to go run nails down a chalkboard now. See how you like it.

Anyway, the point it, I've figured it out. While (once again) surfing the internet for some sort of mind-enhancing intellectual article, I found one entitled "The sound of people eating drives me insane." WHAT? Another soulmate? So I read the article, written by someone with a bit of a more intense case than me--he wears headphones to the cafeteria--but who nevertheless has avoided people during meals to avoid the gutwrenching sounds of lip-on-lip-on-tongue-on-teeth. I was linked to a site baout Hyperacusis, which linked me to a subset called Selective Soft Sound Sensitivity. I feel saved.

Therapy: I could get a pink noise CD and listen to it two hours a day and re-tune my ears to being able to tolerate the noise. I honestly think it might be worth it. Im gonna get some personalized moulded earbuds that hum pink noise all day long. Then, maybe, by Christmas, you and I can do lunch. Fuck.

also, if curious: www.hyperacusis.net

A Bout of the Blues

mannnn.
ive been inexplicably bummed for a week or so.
gotta shake it.

On a Scale 1:20

I was trying to find information about the French sector of Berlin during the Cold War and I just found a website lovingly dedicated to the Berlin Wall. And when I say "lovingly" I dont mean hastily and self-consciously fascinated with an edifice of history or a symbol of an idea. The site is about love as true love as human love. A Swedish woman (pictured below), during West Germany's occupational-haze and East Germany's Communism-stint, decided that she loved the Berlin Wall as a wall. As a vertical and horizontal and concrete and iron structure. She claims it was her first love. Her true love. She visited the wall for the first time in 1977 and On June 17, 1979, they were married. Imagine her, in a white dress, barefoot, being married to a wall. Who's her witness? Who buys into that? Who's the preacher that willingly follows her down to some obscure corner and awkwardly addresses the "will you take this woman" to a WALL? Furthermore, which corner does she pick? Which part deserves the most allegiance? Can she marry a person after that? What are the laws about marriage between human and object, person and thing, noun and other noun?


She calls it Animism. "The fundamental condition of objectum-sexuality." The politics of the wall are completely, and unbelievably, irrelevant. "The Berlin Wall symbolizes communism and oppression to many people but not to me. I am not interested in politics. The Berlin Wall is my spouse, it is as simple as so." But, despite the profound love and loyalty she feels for the wall, this Animism translates to other objects as well: bridges, fences, gates, railways, even gallows. And to manifest this love for these objects, perhaps to express it, maybe the way we (being non-Animistic people) would doodle pictures of our crushes or lay awake and recreate conversations we've had or things they did, she makes miniature scaled models of these structures, painstakingly detailed and devotingly photographed. Besides models of the Berlin Wall, she has a model of the Bridge on the River Kwai, American gallows, and her neighbor's fence. But the Wall, die Berliner Mauer (in German) is her one true love. After their marriage, she took "his name," and she now calls herself Wall Winther Berliner-Mauer. She has a hard time discussing his destruction on November 9, 1989. And she believes Germany should have remained divided.

I think why this site fascinates me so much, is that it completely counters my own obsession with the Wall as an entirely political and historical structure built out of confusion and hate and fear and calamity and that people could honestly live in a city for 28 years with a wall all around. And Berliners talk about it with such dismissive acceptance and Americans prod with such aggressive curiosity. Its not that Germans arent taught to value history, because they certainly are and they certainly do, but sometimes I wonder if we're taught a different type of historical appreciation--an elaborate, sensationalized concept of the profundity of every action on every other action throughout time. I mean, Im always so curious as to how the Wall affected everyone's LIFE. "Tell me, was it WEIRD with the WALL?!" And thats probably completely idiotic of me. And, clearly, the Wall affects everyone in different ways.
"My dear Berlin Wall, you make me/crazy of love for You!" -from a poem written by Wall Winther Berliner-Mauer.

Oh, and go to http://www.berlinermauer.se/BerlinWall/ if youre interested in this site.

I Hate My Hair

The money for our rent that Jackie tried to wire to the woman we are renting our (amazing) apartment from is missing. Bank of America is conducting an "official international investigation." My life is part of an "official international investigation." Jackie told me not to be mad if we get kicked out of our apartment. I was brushing my teeth and I shrugged my shoulders and kept brushing. I may be naively assuming that it'll all work out.

I unwittingly hurt my friend's feelings the other day by saying something honest that didnt need to be said. I used to always get silently mad at my friend Will because he does that constantly: he is so obsessed with being true and honest and forthright that he forgets that compassion is sometimes worth its weight in lies. Or at least in hidden truths. Not everything needs to be said. Especially when its irrelevant. So, I feel like a jerk, but a more descriptive, sincere version of a jerk, but I dont really know what to call that.

I want to move to Berlin for awhile.

Im tired of everyone trying to psychoanalyze the way I live my life, including myself. I live my life, big deal. And not every action of mine has to be a manifestation of my past. Whats past is Past is passed and I dont like feeling like Im living in a fishbowl. My actions dont always have a profound source, sometimes I just act.

This woman at my office comes downstairs every once in awhile and just starts talking and talking and talking in German really fast and really loud and really aggressive-like, then every once in awhile she'll ask me "Dont you speak any German? (in English)" Like my silence to her is personal. Like Im not cringing on the inside trying to understand every word shes saying all the while cursing myself for not being better at things in general. Things in general. If I could only give myself a break.

Jürgen said he's not going to coach the German team anymore. That's fuckn sad. Everything Ive read says that he gave the German team, Germans and Germany hope. I guess those shoes were probably too big to keep walking in and he wants to go back to America. Why am I so invested in the German soccer team? I guess its something nationalistic thats actually worth supporting, even if it isnt my country.
On yet another World Cup note, Zidane. As Ive read article after article about his "outburst" "headbutt" "Kopfstoß" "head charge" "dispicable behavior" "reprimandable action" "ignominy" "disgrace" I have to say, sometimes a racist fucker just needs a headbutt. And if no one else is going to stand up for you, and youre arguably the best soccer player of your time and everyone keeps telling you that youre not actually French, but really just North African and you have just missed a goal by two inches beause the Italian goalie is that good and youve already said that its the last game of your career and theres ten minutes left and hes shouting shit about your mother and your homeland when all you want to do is get the ball, shit, Id fuckn headbutt him too. And all those disappointed fans act like they dont know that feeling of unsurmountable swell under your ribcage when things said are that corrosively acidic, and I wonder what chemical reaction between brain and body makes profound disbelief drain into stomach-clenching rage, ascend to conclusive decision(watch Zidane jog to get in front of Materazzi), and explode into irrational executed action. Im not saying I condone violence, but thank God these players are real people. I dont need every game to be a Lifetime Special.



I miss my sister.

The Inevitable Question

I just ran into a doorframe and spilled hot tea all over myself. I swear to God my blindspot is the size of a basketball. And its weird to write "swear to God". I say it all the time, but writing it is weird. Also why am I drinking hot tea in the middle of summer?

Anyway, Ive been doing some research to see what this whole blog thing is about. I guess I feel compelled to ask myself exactly what to put in this thing. Whats the difference between a blog and a journal? Perhaps in my case, my journal is for hashing and rehashing and belaboring and dwelling and perusing and fuming. My blog is for once-overs, casual thoughts, stupid realizations, trifles, irrelevancies, vacancies. So, what do I find when I go from blog to blog on the internet (conveniently, Blogger lets you move from one blog to another with no real order or intent)? I find Spanish blogs, Swedish blogs, Turkish blogs, blogs about President Bush and Hawaiian boxing and what stocks someone wants to buy. I find blogs by weight watchers and shopaholics and photophiles and mothers and world travelers and insomniacs. I find blogs dedicated to "you" and "her" and "him" and "two hearts bound by a delicate twine...STRONG enough...to stand the test of time..." and some blog by a woman called "augmentation breast georgia."
*********


I wish I werent so hard on myself. I get pissed because I think Im not creative enough or that I dont have legitimate hobbies and I just absorb other peoples' creations. I used to paint. I used to play piano. I used to do sculpture and silk screen and cook and knit. Now I listen to music and I read. My brain is full of other peoples' things, ideas, uniqueness. Its a bogus feeling, like when someone gives you a compliment and either you a) know its not true and they know its not true but they said it anyway which is shitty, or b) know its not true but they dont know its not true so you feel like a phony. Either way it feels like Lonely. And a little like Empty.
*********


Some boys are just bad listeners. I was talking to one of my best guy friends on the phone the other day and I was lamenting about some stupid situation, but the best he could say was "well, you cant have everything you want." That really frustrated and irritated and upset me. Duh I cant have everything I want, thats not the fuckn point. Then, he or other guy friends want to talk to me for hours upon hours about how girls do this and girls do that and, while I actually love talking to them about it and hearing what they have to say and trying to offer some female solace and wisdom to the situations, friendship is a two way street and some people are all take and no give. Usually I impute it to the fact that we're in college and we only have ourselves to worry about, but that doesnt mean you have to be selfish or distant or dismissive. Like how I always have to call them first and then I feel like an asshole even though they actually do want to talk to me and are being bullheaded or oblivious. Sometimes they're just as moody and dramatic and frustrating as they claim girls are and that drives me nuts. And, of course I can get my girl friends to talk to me about stupid shit, but I like talking to guys. I like what they have to say and having rapport and no matter if youre gay or straight men need women and women need men and I dont know what Id do without my guy friends, despite how much they frustrate me sometimes.
*********

Dave: youre always putting poetry in your blog and at the risk of mimicing your style (and falling prey to my earlier-articulated lament), some poems are just rad enough to share. Like Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool."

WE REAL COOL (1960)

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

*********

"We lurk late. We strike straight." Hell yeah.

Am Ende Der Weltmeisterschaft

I understand that it's incredibly trite to watch a bunch of soccer games and then decide that a certain number of those amazing players must now become the loves of my life, but I nevertheless dedicate this entry to the men who made watching the World Cup a truly enjoyable and exciting experience. So, for those of you who haven't been following the World Cup here is a short list of some of them, with some of their accomplisments. I dont really know that much about professional soccer and the history of these men, so I'm mostly going off of popular websites, newspaper stories, seeing them play, and of course, pure instinctual love. Technically, this list is in no particular order, but, lets face it, the ones at the top are more important, and probably German.

All players may be found on the FIFA World Cup Website at http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com. Direct links to certain players will be included as is deemed necessary so that you can access the profundity of their majesty.

1. Jürgen Klinsmann: coach of the German team, and probably the most charismatic, optimistic, lovable and encouraging man I have ever seen. Also, he's on Pele's list of top 125 living soccer players (I do find it amusing, though, that Pele gets to make his own list, and why 125 instead of, um, 100? It makes no sense.) Plus, at 39, he created a pseudonym for himself and played for a US team. He's also a trained baker. I mean, come on, he's amazing.
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/team/coach.html?team=GER
2. Miroslav Klose: some say he looks like a character from Lord of the Rings. I say he looks like Sean Penn and that as long as he has the Golden Shoe Award, I don't care what he looks like. But, he could afford to lose that awkward patch of dye-job-gone-wrong at the front of his hair. I mean, what is that.
http://www.miroslav-klose.de (look at the picture of him as a kid with the mullet. Pure gold.)
3. Michael Ballack: six words: Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. And before anyone tells me that this list is based too much on looks and not on skill, that is false. Ballack is the captain that dreams are made of and I could link a whole list of articles about how he's a symbol for German Unity and bladdy bladdy blah and around here he's basically treated like a God among men.
http://www.michael-ballack.com
4. Zinedine Zidane: despite his disgraceful ejection from the Final against Italy, Zidane is also a God among men. Many consider him to be the best football player in the last 20 years. And, despite its ignominy, that was a pretty fuckn sweet headbutt to the solar plexus.
http://www.zidane.fr (only in French and Spanish)
5. Thierry Henry: I mean, did you see his goal against Brazil in the quarter finals, both feet in the air, tap with the right foot, beautiful arch over Dida's head? He's an acrobat.
6. Gianluigi Buffon: Now, out of principle I do not want to include an Italian player, but Buffon is a rugged gnarly goalie. Only two goals got by him in the entire World Cup, one by his own teammate (Italy vs. USA) and one by Zidane in the Final (penalty kick). His eyes do kind of look like he's a messenger of death, though.

Okay, that's a pretty exhaustive detailed list, but here are some players that are also good, but more just hot.

. Andriy Shevchenko (Ukraine Striker)
. Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany--and he's not that hot, but, he had two amazing goals against Portugal and he took his shirt off and flexed a bunch and got a yellow card)
. Andreas Isaksson (Sweden Goalie)
. Raphael Wicky (Switzerland Midfielder)
. John Aloisi (Australia Striker)

But, all that being said, I am very glad that I now get to experience a normal Berlin again as a fully functional city; no more honking cars at all hours of the night, no more puke at the subway stops, no more tense final minutes and no more blocked streets and tourists. I will also say that despite initial misgivings, German nationalism is quite an endearing and heartwarming spectacle and Ive never seen a country so happy with third place. South Africa 2010, baby.

My Life is a Novel

Check out how interesting Jackie and I are:

On Saturday, we didn't have anything to do, so we picked a part of Berlin that we've never been to, and we WENT THERE!!!!!!
It's called Köpenick and it's in southwestern Berlin. I've prepared a little slideshow for your delight.

Above is a picture of Jackie, who has just received a free (Yes, FREE) packet of Tic Tacs and glucose sticks from a street vendor.



Then, the girl went and antagonized a pair of swans:

Which seems to be a theme with her:

So I quickly removed her from that perilous situation (did you know that swans are incredibly violent and territorial?) And we moved on.
We also saw this amazing military wedding on a street corner in front of an old church, complete with a dozen men in full military garb with World War I helmets and white gloves and men with bow ties and women with pill box hats, and we felt like we'd stepped into 1958, but it also felt too voyeuristic and invasive to stand along and take pictures, so we watched for a short while until the pair drove off in a white convertible volkswagen beetle, honking and hollering and incredibly adorable.

Kopenik had a couple of memorials dedicated to the date April 23, 1945 when the Soviets liberated that part of town from the Nazi facists, only to put in place a comparably totalitarian and oppressive regime, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. To each his own, I guess.
Below is first a plaque commemorating the date that reads (roughly, my German is...shitty) "On this historic day, Berlin-Kopenik was freed from the facist Nazis." The second is a picture of the nearby statue memorializing some raising of a fist, which is what the Germans seem to believe symbolizes any struggle anywhere at any time. Struggle=Raised Fists.

ANYWAY, the rest of the day doesn't really have any pictures of note, but, before you ask, NO, not every day of mine in Berlin is as exciting as this one. Sometimes Jackie and I just sit around looking at each other. And eating pasta.

Siegfried

It's too hot today and I'm eating melting chocolate at my desk because I, for some reason, feel uncomfortable sitting for long periods of time with my coworkers at lunch, language barrier erected. Sometimes I wonder if I need to be alone to be quiet, and when I'm with people if I always need to speak. I've tried changing my MO in that regard and it's unusual but somehow more pleasant. Like I hear more. Or I absorb more.

But, the title of this post demands explanation. There's a man at work named Siegfried but he goes by Ziggy ("like Ziggy Marley"). And he's sexy. And I can't tell you why, but he just is. I have no idea how old he is, he looks between 30 and 40. He's a man of few words. He wears those California-inspired, fake-American-sports-team shirts with the distressed lettering and the irrelevant details. He doesnt say a word to me. And he's apparently pretty important around here.

According to my officemate, Lorenz, he goes by Ziggy because the name Siegfried is so archaic that it sounds oddly out of place. I guess it's like people in America with names like Chester, Dorothy, Emmanuel or Heathcliff. Siegfried means "victory" and "peace" and it comes from the legendary German hero who defeated the Icelandic queen Brunhild to win the hand of Kriemhild (a whole lottery of names right here), only to be killed by Hagen in the one vulnerable spot on the small of his back which had been covered by a leaf while he bathed in dragon's blood. I wonder if that spot on the back could be called your Siegfried's Patch or your Siegfried's Spot like your Achilles Heel. Someone's always vunerable somewhere.

I am very glad that the World Cup is almost over.

My Juice

For some reason, Germany doesnt believe things should ever be cold. Except the winters. But certainly not their food or drinks. There's no ice. None. The only store that will serve me ice is McDonalds. And I have never seen an ice tray in a freezer. Refrigerators are luke warm. Butter is left out. Luke warm apple juice. Not acceptable. That being said, when I come to work in the mornings, I take a bottle of apple juice thats normally sitting on the counter and I put it in one of the fridges. I intend to return to this bottle of apple juice after an appropriate amount of fridge-cooling time has passed. So I'm doing my normal work stuff--research, web-surfing, trying to avoid boredom as best as possible, all the while thinking about the wonderful, cold, mouth-watering, refreshing bottle of apple juice awaiting me in the fridge. The bottle I put there. The bottle that should be cool by now. The bottle that Robert Gaßner, man with a ponytail and women's sandals, is carrying up the stairs in its entirety to drink at his desk. And I'm an intern, and there's no NGC equivalent in Germany and I cant just go throwing around phrases like "Das ist mein Saft" (that is my juice), even if it is because it's just not right. So, I grabbed a new bottle and I'm starting over again. Wish me luck.