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.