goodbye, mr. grinch???

well, it's been a week--one crazy-ass week!!!--since i've posted, and i guess i've got some catching up to do.

where to begin...
"let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..."

if only it were that simple!! i mean, what's the beginning, right?

"was there some moment dividing song from no song? when does dewfall begin? when does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them? when is daybreak?" denise levertov, from "...that passeth all understanding"

i love poems that end with questions.

but back to beginnings. we'll start with my birthday. better yet, we'll start with my b-day last year: i had to work at the bucks. i had to open, of course, and we had just gotten back from seeing friends and family in the south. drove through a snowstorm in ohio, with 8 million people from alabama and georgia, who had no idea how to drive in snow, and so the whole thing took a lot longer than it needed to... so. tired (hello, had just spent intense time with family!!!), road-weary (thanks to aforementioned southern drivers in midwestern snowstorm), and opening...alone, because the person i was opening with didn't show up!!

the snowstorm had also hit ann arbor, and i think i actually drove to work, in order to win a few more minutes of precious sleep before re-entering the world of corporate christmas commercialism. (after a few days practically stranded in the mountains in tennessee with nothing but family and a ping-pong table, this was quite the transition!!) but at least i could sit in my car, while trying to figure out who i was supposed to be opening with... yeah. happy birthday.

anyway. my point is--it pretty much sucked. which is not unusual. my birthday, christmas, and december in general, usually suck. so needless to say, i wasn't particularly looking forward to my birthday this year... but i think i may have actually just had the best birthday of my life. i was sort of half hoping it would slip by without anyone noticing, because sometimes it's just easier that way. but i'd seen it noted on a few calendars here and there and knew better. plus, i'm not gonna lie, there was the other half of me that was hoping someone would remember =)

i'll spare you the details--mostly because towards the end of the night, they'd get a little fuzzy anyway. but it was good ;)


but before all of that, i picked up my brother at the airport. which was weird. first of all, i haven't seen that many americans at once in months. and everyone was speaking english. like, american english. *grin* and i felt out of place. weird, huh? the other really weird thing was seeing people in military uniforms. i mean, i know there's a huge american military presence here and all, but it was still strange to see it. then to exercise our american-ness to the fullest, we went immediately to heidelberg and fit right in with the rest of the tourists. hilarious.

it was weird to see my brother react to all the things i now take for granted here in germany. cobblestone streets. having to pay to use the bathroom. unbleached toilet paper. what my friend melissa affectionately refers to as "poo platforms" in the toilets. that beer is practically cheaper than water. seating yourself in restaurants. the "service" in restaurants =) how everyone smokes. the metric system. the absence of sheets and blankets. i could keep going.

yeah. moving on. christmas. cool. really. like i said, christmas hasn't been one of my favorite holidays for a while now, and i usually feel guilty about it. i mean, everyone likes christmas, you know? everyone except scrooge and the grinch. and me. and it's not even really that i dislike christmas in and of itself. it's just that...well, yeah, i don't know...someone's always sad or disappointed or arguing about something stupid. myself included, on occasion. and it was just good to be a bit removed from that this year. being around people who actually like each other makes a difference, evidently. besides, it was just fun to see what people do. a couple of people here had asked me before if it was true that christmas in germany is more "serious" than christmas in the states. and i was like, umm, what do you mean?? but now i get it. and it's not just the absence of jolly old saint nick. i don't know. it was just different.