mistress mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

walking through my garden still makes me philosophical, introspective, incites me still to seek mental refuge.  i haven't been back there for almost 2 years.  but today, some mixture of the sun, the clouds, and the smell of the earth through the screen door beckoned me back...

on grief

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, growing up alone. She wrapped around herself a world of words and pages, of musty library books smelling of all the minds they had touched before, of ancient, enduring wisdom, of paper and sawdust and the deep green forests that lay beyond the pages, stretching in her imagination all the way to the sea. She hid herself away in nooks and corners, behind a sofa, beneath a sheet draped over a bunk bed, weaving in her own childish way, little worlds.

autumn

autumn is officially here (i prefer to call it “autumn” and not “fall,” “fall” being entirely too inelegant a word for this most regal of seasons – spring is too adolescent, summer too self-assured and cocky, and winter is like the incontinent older relative, who shits himself embarrassingly, all white, powdery profusion).

expat syndrome, take 487

one of the most debilitating side effects of the expat syndrome is trying to reconcile oneself to the fact that the people you love are spread out over countries, over continents. that’s the thing that makes you most restless, no matter which place you’re in – there’s always going to be someone missing.

misanthrope

in my line of work, you learn that people lie. they cheat and deceive. they're miserable and rude, without recourse or consequence. they hold in their heads simultaneous hypocrisy, claiming open-mindedness and whispering bigotry.

some people are just stupid fuckers.

but other people - the rare, the few - can be absolute angels.

it's nice when you find one of those other people. just saying.

distance and proximity

recently, i tried to get together for dinner or a movie with one of my oldest friends. she lives in town a, which is a 30-minute drive from me in town b. distances have never been an issue - far-flung pastures are part of the american way of life. that's why we drive suv's and use up a large chunk of the earth's natural oil supply. but given that i work in town c, which is about 45 minutes away from her in town a, this is how our conversation went:

me: "hey, we need to get together."
her: "definitely! it's been waaaaay too long."
me: "we need a break!"
her: "we need to get together and vent!!"
me: (excited) "oh, by the way, they're playing 'brideshead revisited' not far from where i work! we both wanted to see that right?"
her: (pausing) "well, i was thinking we could meet at the bookstore near my house."
me: (calculating mileage in my head) "oh. hmmmm. maybe we could meet halfway?"
her: "yeah, how about the applebees in the middle?"
me and her, simultaneously after a silent pause: "still too far."
me: (sigh)
her: "yeah. damn gas prices."

i miss personal contact. i miss my cafe coffees and hot chocolates with friends in the highly accesible town square. i miss riding the bus or the bahn or the metro. i miss seeing a different country after taking two meager steps out of my own. i'm sure my european friends and relatives are feeling rather smug right now, about their wonderful public transportation systems and the cleverness of town planning by their european ancestors. yeah well, we've got purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain - i've never seen 'em, but i hear we've got 'em. and they're great for making ethanol.

we always went at night. during the day, we dreamed...

it's been almost 10 years since my last visit to my uncle in jeddah - 10 years also since i last went to mecca. i was there in the summer of '99, so my memories may no longer be accurate, and since saudi is usually at its most alive at night, the things i've seen can't be trusted either. images and people and places become blurred at night, their harsher edges photoshopped out by the darkness.

stolen words

when you can' think of the right words yourself, look for quotes from others...

"we shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time."
- t s eliot

layers upon layer upon layers. truths resting on lies, resting on truths. one, two, three parts of a whole - like those little russian dolls. is each a part of one person, or are they three individual schizophrenic people inside one person? voices crowd the brain until one is no longer sure of oneself, but absolute silence is also a deadly impediment to progress - are we truly ourselves with those outside voices telling us who we are and what we should be, or are we truly ourselves in the silence, where our own lonely voice holds singular, oft-mistaken court? i'm not sure. but above all, there are simple truths which remain the same, constant over the years. like a love of reading. like a sense of identity. like a summer rainstorm.

let me count the ways...

luis moreno-ocampo.....

how do i love thee?

well, for one, i want this man's job.  badly.  a few months ago, "Time Magazine" ran an article of moreno-ocampo, standing in his battling ground in a hague courtroom.  the prosecutor for the international criminal court is my idea of a superhero.

my inner international politics nerd pines for him.  this is almost as bad as my first lecture with professor klaus von beyme in heidelberg.  i had read articles by him in my short political science independent study, and my heart palpitated wildly the day i first encountered him teaching.  i had to stop myself from rushing after him after the lecture to get his autograph on my copy of one of his articles.

i was a little more bold with francis fukuyama a few years later.  i'm pretty sure he's never had someone ask to get their picture taken with him before.  oh well, there's always a first time...

and so you're back, from outer space...

after a week or two of being lazy, allowing myself to fall into a "phase" (there are two phases in my brain, simplistically, which can be turned on and off at will by the surroundings they're in - the "writing phase", where words flow willingly from fingers adept with a pen or a keyboard, and the more dormant, hibernating "reader phase," where the brain turns itself off to all other aspects of life in order to become fully engrossed in a book or series...there is a rarer "tv/movie phase," in which said brain becomes engrossed in a tv series or a movie about to come out, but after the writer's strike, this one comes about only on the weekends, when i can surreptitiously download my favorite show, "doctor who"). for the past week or so, i've been in the reader phase, gleefully getting lost in a series of young adult novels recommended to me by a 23-year-old friend. i won't mention the name of the series (yet), as it's sure to warrant much throwing of tomatoes at the stage and laughter from the peanut gallery, but it's the type of guilty pleasure i would have really enjoyed in high school - in fact, it's exactly the type of book i would have read back then. but like the spice girls, my nancy drew mysteries, and the strangely short and choppy haircut i got in 9th grade, it's a guilty pleasure that will remain in secret until i can laugh about it later.

what got me blogging today? oh yes, this article in "vanity fair" - sometimes, i have to (grudgingly) like christopher hitchens...

laziness

being 26 has made me lazy.

last week was my birthday, and i'm still trying to find a picture on the internet of the berlin street, "Strasse des 17.Junis," to adorn my blog with. because i don't think there are many birthdays out there that have their own street in a major city named after them.

but i can't find one. so i've asked a friend in berlin to take one and send it to me.

otherwise, i'm just going to work, coming home to play with my new pet macbook, and lazing around.

heidelberry finn?

mark twain became beloved to me only after i realized that he too was an international traveler. and also after i realized his connection with heidelberg.

in one of those touristy bookshops on the hauptstrasse in heidelberg, there is a book by werner pieper called "mark twain's heidelberg." i bought it one day after lunch at the excellent chinese buffet at "dong dong" (yes, the name of that restaurant was the source of much mirth among friends while i was there, but you couldn't beat their buffet). it takes excerpts from twain's "a tramp abroad," a book in which his affection for the germans is apparent only when you look past his jokes and jibes. he was after all a humorist, and i wish we had focused more on that side of him when studying him in high school. "huckleberry finn" put me to sleep, though i haven't gone back and read it again since, and perhaps now, that opinion may change.

damn computers

i have a love-hate relationship with technology. and computers. mine for instance was down all of last week because it wouldn't connect to the internet. scheiss schlepptop.

oops, almost forgot...

what funny german men used to do to their mustaches during the leinfeldener krautfest:

i kid you not, there was an entire stall where they did this to your mustaches. it's a schwaben thing apparently. the men in town would grow these 'staches for months, because at the end of the festivities, there would be a competition to see who had the most luxuriantly styled mustache. if you had a beard, you could make cool designs incorporating the two.
gotta love it.

on destiny

destiny is a tricky thing - not all of us know exactly what it holds for us, but for some, the red arrows pointing in a certain direction are inescapable.

take the strange case of unity mitford, one of the 6 talented, lovely, and thoroughly mixed-up mitford sisters. according to the book "the sisters: the saga of the mitford family," unity mitford was conceived in swastika, canada, while her father mined for gold there in the early 1900's. looking for a name that would counteract the peacable moniker "unity," her grandfather gave her the middle name "valkyrie."

traveling gourmand

just read the ny times blog, "the frugal traveler." it's a great idea, and this is one of the many reasons i now wish i had discovered blogging while living in europe and not after - my stories now seem to be pure nostalgia and sentimental reminiscing, and i'm sure i'm forgetting things (what with old age and all...i turn a wise old 26 in 13 days Reader).

in a new york minute...

see, that last post was supposed to be about new york city. though i took the u.n. statistics and veered off seamlessly into a completely different direction (from cities and city life to cultural identity), i curbed my urge to veer wildly back to my original thought process, which would have consequentially destroyed the flow of thought. to many, the post would have been rendered incomprehensible.

aren’t you proud of me Reader?

on culture, part 286...

a recent u.n. report found that half the world’s population lives in urban areas. the npr reporter working the story spoke from karachi,
pakistan, one of the fastest growing cities in recent times. the estimate is that 12 million people live in karachi today, though pakistanis say the number is close to 15-18 million souls. in the background of the reporter’s narrative were the familiar sounds of cars and motorcycles, rickshaws and honking horns.

i wonder if a person’s birthplace subconsciously influences a person’s psyche for the rest of their lives? even if no recollection exists, there must be buried memories somewhere.

pay-per-bagging

(no duh)

the cultural baggage of countries now seems to include...er...bagging.

paper or plastic? - i'd never known it any other way. you went to shop rite, you bagged (or someone bagged for you) your groceries in either the yellow plastic shop rite bags or in the brown paper ones (or, if you're my mom, in both, wherein the paper bag goes into the plastic bag and voila! has spiffy, easy-to-carry handles).