new (pause) NOT

New years eve at work. Yesterday is long gone, and i couldn't sleep forever, I tried. It all seemed so possible, now I'm back here delaying everything. Maybe I can run a bit longer. or run in the right direction for a change? or relax? curses. blast. fiddlesticks?

pretend i'm okay

xmas eve on tolman. the wrong beverage, the right music. do i have a toothache? do i need to take more vitamins? will i get soaked walking to the plaid? can this music get any louder? is everyone else really out of town? i don't have the answers to these questions. i am in love. a lot of things are losing their importance. or maybe losing the illusion of importance. i never saw this coming, never dared to envision it. i have slipped through many phases in the past few years, and this new one feels more real than anything else ever has. i will always be a trashy fuckless asshole, but i can also be good and happy. this is a development. i enjoy my days and nights, relish my connections. an infrequent slip into minimart oblivion helps me see this. a walk in the slushy dark night, a tour of heartfucked songs and self-pity to remind myself of the inevitable daylight. nothing is as dire as i sometimes want it to be. let's be alive. let's just fucking sit there and listen to the music of closeness, dance wildly in the stillness of contentment. let's leave tomorrow alone and speak in the present tense. she finally has a name and i finally have something to hold on to. happy holocaust.

colbert and south park

i turned in a full draft of my thesis yesterday. it was a shitty draft, but still, a whole draft. i can almost imagine being done now. of course, i'll most likely start my ph.d. work before i even defend my masters, so it's not like i'm done done.

but that's pretty much how i'm acting now. i know i could do things to improve my thesis all on my own--but why not just wait a day or two and let my adviser tell me exactly what he wants me to fix? no point in fixing extra shit. besides, that would be like admitting i wasn't already done. so i spent the day laying on the couch and catching up on my american tv with my computer. i also went to the grocery store, which is only two blocks away, but is still in german, so it's basically like work. i guess i could've watched some german tv to work on my language skills, but that would have also seemed like work. plus, the only tv is right in front of the bed, so if i had gone there, a nap definitely would have happened. and while naps are awesome, i'm honestly not even committed enough to laziness to feel good about that.

probably my favorite thing about this country is that unless you walk right the fuck into someone, you do not have to say anything. and even then, if you just kind of half-mutter "entschuldigung" (sorry/excuse me), you're pretty much good. germany is like living in an entire nation of reedies: everyone just tries to avoid eye contact and keeps to themselves. it makes it very easy for a foreigner to blend in. it also makes you wonder why the hell the turks and eastern european immigrants are so damn loud. if they just picked up on this one cultural thing, no one would even notice them...ummhmm. nevermind.

Watch

Saw step brothers yesterday, Jesse said I needed to watch it. January agrees- what the hell man, why are you supporting such scatological low brow unfunny garbage? blah blah ok, damnit i can't even concentrate long enough to pretend to be that guy. I was gonna put in the comments some lame joke about a lot of hits from berlin, and i'm throwing the spies off my trail, i dunno fuck.

adaptation

so i'm totally on berlin time now. my flight went well; probably as a result of not sleeping in the day leading up to my move and the fact that my flight wasn't even half-full, so i had a whole row to myself. and the lorazepam. the lorazepam definitely made things better.

i don't fully remember how we did it, but somehow, patrick and i kept ourselves entertained until about 8 pm or so, when we went out to get some dinner. we stopped by the gas station mini-mart. in germany, these places are crucial as regular supermarkets have to follow some bizarre set of operating hour laws, but gas station markets are open 24/7. basing on what they had there, i think this is the only place i will ever need to go. and the guy who was working last night seemed pretty cool. i make myself feel better by reminding myself that in the year leading up to coming here i got most of my own groceries at a market very much like this one. why change habits now?

we got thai, as it was the only near-by restaurant that wasn't german (no germans except old people and heavy drinkers actually go to german restuarants. which makes sense--think of who goes to "american" restaurants in the u.s.). patrick ordered for me, which was ridiculous, since it was a thai restuarant like any other thai restaurant--meaning all the dishes are numbered, so it wasn't like i had to pronounce some long name, i just had to say "zwei-und-siebzig bitte". it was awesome though, because patrick gave them the wrong number for what i wanted, and learned his lesson ordering for me.

when we got back, i managed to stay awake until 10:30 or so, even though the room was spinning and i was having dreams while i was awake. i woke up at 9:30 this morning and am now totally adjusted. i also feel incrediably sick. so my powers of adaptation may be tested today.

dragging

all i want to do is sleep. the last four days i've been forced to get up early and now every time i try to do real work like write or read a paper, i doze off. which is embarrassing to do in front of your office mate. fortunately, mine is completely absorbed in a manuscript she's writing, so i've been able to sleep by unnoticed. but i can't count on it.

the reason for this morning's early wake-up was an interview with the people in berlin. yeah, i don't actually have an official job offer yet, but i'm still planning on moving there. and i feel "yet" is the operative word. the interview went well enough that i was all hopped up on endorphins and was able to stay awake. now the time is dragging. i'm meeting bill for a beer at a bar up the street at 5:30. then i'll be hopped up on hops.

if i can stay awake that long.

i'm going to see if bill can meet earlier.

by the way, my very most favorite christmas movie is on tonight (after "the christmas story" that is). it's that terrible old claymation rudolph one, with burl ives as the snowman narrator. yeah, that movie kicks ass. that's something to stay awake for.

nonsense words

fucking deathly. dark and rainy, cold, got home to an empty house and fell apart. drank some vault, ate some shitty chips, saw nothing to do but go to bed. fell asleep with deafening music on, woke up four hours later feeling like hell. now it's approaching midnight and there's nothing for me here. i'm not sure what i need.