my secret life as a travel agent

so i've spent more time online trying to arrange various travel details for myself, my father, and various friends the past few weeks than i've spent sleeping and eating combined. and you know how much i love food. seriously. now if only i worked on commission =)

i also just realized that it's april. first of all, how is it april already!?!?!? not that i'm complaining. march is still practically winter where i come from, although we all like to pretend that it's going to be spring. but april?? april means spring. period. plus, i've also realized that the rest of my time in germany can roughly be divided up into two or three week segments, which makes july not seem so far away. in two weeks, we have our easter break, which means, yep, LOTS of traveling for me. after that, a week and then april's practically over. then, hopefully, i'll get to see a couple of people from home at some point during the month of may??? (get your asses over here!!!!) then at the end of may we have another couple of weeks off of school, and my dad's coming to visit. then there are a couple more weeks of school, then i'm done. crazy. after that i have a couple weeks to travel, etc. then i come home!!! it's going to go by pretty quickly, for better or for worse. i'm starting to panic, realizing how much i haven't done yet!!!

fragments

walking home, offered ride by martin, how is this my life?? =) watching the rain darken the pavement in front of me a few drops at a time

something reminds me of the texture of weathered american dollar bills, stories of money in envelopes, farmer's market in ann arbor on saturday mornings. not nostalgia. not even homesickness (at least not at the moment!!) just a kind of joy in knowing that such things exists and that i will go home to them--(NOT YET)--that i have a home. (even if it's not my home!!)

"And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. . . Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come! But I couldn't (NOT YET) come and I didn't know where i was to come to."

madeleine: "back in joy"...

wonder if i'm here because i don't know where else to go. needing/wanting to be at home somewhere. homesick everywhere. not running away, just trying to find home. wonder if i'm asking too much of germany... (KNOW i'm asking too much of the germans!!)

trying to write this essay for my application to stay here next year... not sure what to say. how honest to be. not even sure what the truth is at the moment. (or ever??) ..."just be yourself"... who the fuck is that??? i remember writing an angsty essay in my high school english class about how pissed i was that teachers and guidance counselors kept telling us stuff like that when we were writing college application essays. of course, i didn't use words like "fuck" when i was in high school... good girls didn't say things like that, and i wanted to be a good girl. but i'm a far cry from what that girl thought was a good girl, so to hell with it all, right?

keep asking myself the...

"same old questions,
without words,
so familiar
seldom heard.
if I answer
I confess
I am only
just a guess..."

wondering if i'm supposed to stay here long enought to learn HOW to overcome the things that being here has taught me that i NEED to overcome

(that said, i need to quote the rest of the song...surprise, surprise)

"and with my eyes
it's hard to see
with my ears it's
hard to believe that
if I ever lose my will to live
it was me that I could not forgive

there's no savior hanging on this cross
it isn't suffering we fear but loss
this is closer than I ever came
just a burning moth without a flame

isaac's knife can
cut away
all the poisoned
yesterdays
and the anger
ease it down
into the ocean
let it drown
as far as east is
from the west
I let you go
I know it's best
and my answer to the years of strife
is the way I choose to live my life

there's no savior hanging on this cross
it isn't suffering you fear but loss
when there's no one else around to blame
you're a burning moth without a flame

maybe I should take your face tonight
let you see yourself in a different light
if you were to take my place tonight
wouldn't jesus be surprised

there's no savior hanging on this cross
it isn't suffering we fear but loss
this is closer than I ever came
just a burning moth without a flame
it's an offer that you can't refuse
it's a trophy that you'll want to lose
but you'll do anything
anything
you're a burning moth without a flame"

Over the Rhine::Moth

you can draw your own conclusions.

Wish You Were Here

"So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell..."

i saw a pink floyd cover band at a club in schwaebisch hall last night. if you need a mental picture, think "the blind pig" only about twice as big and full of guys in their mid-fifties with graying jerry curls and ratty black t-shirts. at the ripe old age of 25, i felt a little out of place, actually. (i even ran into one of the teachers from my school. only slightly awkward!!) until the band started, they were piping in 80's madonna, pat benatar, boston, journey and starship. yes, starship. you know, "nothing's gonna stop us now" starship?? seriously??? (this kind of thing is, however, not at all unusual in german clubs.) but back to pink floyd... so the band was decent but not great. and what they lacked in musicianship, they tried to make up for in reverb. the fans didn't seem to mind. for example, the guy in front of me, probably late 40's with a receding hairline, wearing a striped polo shirt with belted khakis pulled up to his armpits... the guy was totally into it--that is, shifting his weight from one foot and to the other, hands in his pockets, nodding his head, occasionally even in time with the music, eyes closed... you know, where you're thinking, really, YOU got high in the 70's??!!

yeah.

conversations and poems and words and non-words and my utter inability to quote piano pieces. this is a bit of what has been filling my head lately. traveling gives one lots of time to think. as i sat in the bus last weekend on my way to wuerzburg, i was listening to music--partially to keep me from thinking TOO much. this completely backfired, of course. but it was good.

disclaimer: i don't really want to be one of those people who lists the last ten songs randomly played on their ipod... it's way too easy to make something out of which songs are played and pretend that it's profound or something. or just to say, hey, look how cool i am, i listen to this and this and this... but that said... here are the last ten songs randomly played on my ipod =) just kidding. sort of. see... it was kind of like this. i had had a pretty shitty week, but the sun was shining, and i was starting to think it might be ok. but i wasn't sure if i was ready to commit to being hopeful, because that can be dangerous, you know??? thus the appeal of the shuffle songs function. sure enough...

first song : ben harper : the power of the gospel
second : linford detweiler : mary's hymn
third : bob dylan : buckets of rain
fourth : muse : ruled by secrecy
fifth : U2 : bad
sixth : sarah mclachlan : hold on
seventh : ani difranco : carry you around

can we talk about this?!?!? (that is, i'm going to quote from a couple of them, and you're going to be amazed by the profundity of it all, right?)


ben
"It will make a weak man mighty
it will make a mighty man fall
it will fill your heart and hands
or leave you with nothing at all
it's the eyes for the blind
and legs for the lame
it is love for hate
and pride for shame"

mary's hymn is a piano piece, which, unfortunately, i don't know how to quote, but it was fitting. quite.

U2
"If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender...
Dislocate...
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light...
And to the day...

To let it go! And so to fade away
Let it go!
And so fade away
I'm wide awake!
I'm wide awake!
Wide awake! I'm not sleeping, oh no, no, no..."


ani
"how pleased can one
sun setting make you
if you humble yourself
to it?
how grateful can you
really say that you are
just to be here and live
through it?
and when beauty asks a question
how often do you reply?
how often do you wonder
about life on the other side?
on the other side of sorrow
on the other side of rage
on the other side of o.k.
o.k. at all
in any way..."

ok, i was going to quote more, but this post is long enough already. i have about 800 stories i need to tell, too, and i just haven't gotten around to it. there have been many adventure in the past few weeks, most of which have gone unreported. i also have a nice little rant about the deutsche post saved up, too... =)

the week in review

although it's only thursday. but if i wait 'til the weekend, i'll never write anything, so let's see...monday i was all excited, because it was pretending to be spring here. tuesday and wednesday it was rainy and gray and ass-cold, and i was beginning to wonder if it was a mistake to send half of my warmer clothes home with alicia... today, still cold-ish but SUNNY. and this makes all the difference in the world!! plus, my march issue of Paste arrived yesterday. and that is ALWAYS a good thing. a) it's mail. and it don't get a lot of that. b) it only comes every other month, so it's not like your credit card bill or something, that you expect--and dread, if you're me!!--every month, look at and throw out the window in hopes that it will simply disappear. with paste it's like a surprise every time, because i forget that it's coming, and because i'm overseas, it takes longer to get here, and you never really know if it'll even show up at all.

and i ran into one of my fellow folk-music loving germans (mel, if you're reading this, there is at least ONE WHOLE EUROPEAN who likes such music!! there's still hope!!!!) we didn't actually talk music, but just remembering that he exists was helpful. many of you know--although certainly not from experience or anything!!=)--that one of my favorite pasttimes is introducing my friends to cool music, and that's something i've missed horribly here. i remember the first time i heard someone in ann arbor--patrick, no less--mention the innocence mission, i just gaped at him, hardly believing what i was hearing. i didn't even respond or jump into the conversation or mention that i like them, too. it was one of the first times i was hanging out these people--jen, dan d and patrick. we were in sweetwaters at one of the tall tables against the back wall--and i was still trying to figure out what i was doing hanging out with these people at all. and patrick had to go and mention the innocence mission... crazy. sometimes i wonder if my life in a2 was really just a dream. especially that second year. i feel like it was always cold and snowing and dark. and beautiful and profound things kept happening anyway. in the midst of the all the chaos... i don't know. there were things i was sure of then. what the hell happened?!?!? =)

had lots of thought-provoking conversations and experiences yesterday and today... more on that later, still processing =) i'm going to miss my conversation classes with the 13th graders--they have the next week off to prepare for exams.

speaking of preparing, i'm supposed to be writing an essay for one of my applications for next year. i'm still taking suggestions if anyone out there happens to know what the hell i'm supposed to do with my life =) when i was at the fulbright seminar in berlin a couple of weeks ago, i kept asking everyone what they were doing next year, hoping someone would have a brilliant idea i could steal. but no luck... so yeah. instead of writing my essay, i'm blogging =) yesterday i procrastinated by downloading music. seriously, what would we do without the internet!?? i, for one, might actually get something done!!

but since the sun in still shining, i'm going to go procrastinate in the outdoors for a while...

it's spring--i think

listening to beck and missing my old front porch and the greek's kids and spring in ann arbor.

looking forward to spring in hohenlohe. besides, i'll be spending most of my spring actually IN hohenlohe, because i'm now officially broke and can't afford to travel anymore for a while!! just finished doing my taxes, and let me tell you, the grand total of $15 i'm getting back from the state of michigan isn't going to get me very far!!

spanish, more songs lyrics and tomato soup

so tonight i went to my first spanish class since...1999..!?? yeah. (sorry, señor!!) I was somewhat dragged there--that is, if not for the persistence and generally contagious enthusiasm of a certain fellow (transplanted) resident of hohenlohe, i probably wouldn't have left my house this evening. (it's so freakin' cold here!!!! what happened to spring, people?!?!?!)

anyway. back to spanish. it was sufficiently embarrassing but not nearly as humiliating as i'd expected. and i only had one of the oh-my-gosh-i-can't-breathe-my-heart-isn't-beating-i'm-going-to-pass-out-they-asked-me-a-question-and-i-have-to-say-somethin-and-i-don't-speak-spanish panic attacks. the really impressive thing, however, was the realization that i DON'T have those with german anymore. at least not regularly =) and this is progress. (we like progress.)
............................................................................................

and having spent a lot of time traveling over the past few weeks, i've come back to this--one of my many favorite innocence mission songs...

Song about Traveling

A man said Why, why does traveling
in cars and in trains make him feel sad,
a beautiful sadness.
I've felt this before.
It's the people in the cities you'll never know,
it is everything you pass by,
wondering, will you ever return?

The colors of rowboats, the greens and the blues.
Orange grove side streets you only see halfway.
And beaches in winter
and when kites are flown.
It's the people in the cities you'll never know,
it is everything you pass by,
wondering, will you ever return?
....................................................

what makes everything ok:
tomato soup with sunflower seeds and shredded cheese that sticks to the spoon and your lips, leaving little strings hanging down to stick to your chin

what would make everything even better:
eating tomato soup with sunflower seeds and shredded cheese that sticks to the spoon and your lips, leaving little strings hanging down to stick to your chin--while sitting across from someone else eating tomato soup with sunflower seeds and shredded cheese that sticks to the spoon and their lips, leaving little strings hanging down stuck to their chin

this is not my home

i guess it's been a while... there's been lots of traveling and not so much of the regular internet access. not to mention the "so-much-to-write-about-that-i-don't-know-where-to-start" syndrome. but, as so many before me have said, in one way or another, we write to find a beginning...

let's see. first there was Karneval in Koeln. that was some kick-ass craziness, let me just tell you. think mardi gras, german-style. beer. folk music (in dialect, no less!). but face paint and crazy costumes instead of lederhosen. bars crowded to the point where people are spilling out onto the streets, still dancing--or swaying, rather, the entire bar shifting simultaneously from left to right, right to left again. people spilling their beer all over each other and only half caring. in a word, hilarious. and i have never in my life seen so many broken bottles on the streets. it was sort of surreal, the crunch, crunch with every step...

then alicia got here, and it was time for take two of the whirlwind tour of germany. lots of traveling, awkward and not-so-awkward conversations in some bizarre mixture of german and english. the fulbright seminar in Berlin. seeing a friend i hadn't seen in some 3 years. making new friends in a doener shop in dresden...

and now alicia's gone, and it's back to "normal" life in hohenlohe.

then someone wrote to me and inadvertently reminded me of what my life was like a year ago... and all i can say or think or do or be comes down to this: this is not my home. ...funny, when i typed that, it first came out: "this is noW my home"... which is kind of my point. i love everyone and everything that makes this so NOT my home. and i love all the people and places that make me wish it were. does this make sense at all?? ...didn't think so.

welcome to my life.