So it's been a while. But I've got a host of good excuses, really. The last two weekends, I've been out of town, which has left me totally wiped during the week. The weekend before last, in Rostock, was grand. Really, really awesome. We drank a bottle of gin & tonic on the train up and proceeded to go out and dance until four thirty in the morning. I needed it. But it kicked my ass. Seeing everyone from last year was also amazing--I really miss having a base group of people around. Meeting people in a big city is hard--especially when you specialize in pre-school. I mean, seriously. I don't get to play with the big kids. Which sucks.
However, last weekend, if a tad more stressful, was equally awesome. Both of Stephan's grandparents turned 70 last week, so they had a 140th bithday party last weekend. It was also really great to be with a family. And Stephan's is just right for me: loud, chaotic, friendly and unrefined. Mostly. They make me feel like a part of everything, which when you're far away from home and your own family, is an excellent thing. The only shitty part was that we had to go down on Saturday and come home on Sunday...Monday morning, I was totally destroyed. The whole week's been kind of hazy, and I've forgotten more shit than I normally do, but thank god I had a few classes cancelled. It'll be a pain in the ass to have to make them all up, but it was totally worth it to have a week that was just a skotch less stressful than normal. It also gave me a chance to catch up on household things, go grocery shopping with the boys ( I really almost had to cut a bitch when they started whining that I was walking too fast. Wusses.), set up a new bank account and at least contemplate Christmas shopping.
The real news of the hour, however is that I now actually have my visa in my hot little hands (passport). It looks pretty cool, but after seven weeks and fifty Euros, it had damn well better. I know the process isn't any better or any cheaper or any more dignified at home--or at least, in our post 9/11 paranoia, I assume it isn't--but I hate the subtitles that are oh-so-present in the whole experience. That the state workers have absolute authority over whether you get to stay or go. That you're tolerated, but not wanted. The precariousness is in the goddamn air in that building, I swear it. And I'm one of the "desirables", you know? I'm educated, American (i.e. $$$$$), I already have a job here...and still, walking to the Auslanderbehoerde this morning, I almost had a fucking panic attack. Even though I'd been told that everything had cleared, I was still petrified that I'd get there and the second copy of the puce paper would be missing or something idiotic and beauracratic like that. You might be chuckling, but it's not at all that far fetched. Something like 70% of all printed tax documents are in German. They believe in paperwork here. Paperwork creates order. And really, Germans do love order. Again, it may sound outrageously stereotypical, but it's true. It's a generalization, but very much based in fact.

I'm noticing slowly that even though it's the warmest November on record here, the whole Berlin-winter-funk is starting to creep over me. I haven't been to the gym in over a week. And before that, I think it was also a week. When I come home, I really just want to get in bed and read. Speaking of which, I just finished Middlesex--great book. I'm sure I'm reading it after pretty much everyone else who's going to, but it was really fabulous. Due to the excessive amounts of time I spend in public-trans, I chewed through it in, like, a week. Through this, I made the fascinating discovery that when I read in English here, I shut out absoultely everything around me. I scared myself a few times by not hearing the people doing random ticket controlls in the tram and by almost missing my stop a few times. All of which led me to think. I read voraciously as a little kid, and I think what happened in college was that I discovered with an excess of guys and booze, I could attain the same level of "away" from wherever I was. When they say books take you places, it's so much more than corny, literacy initiative bullshit. They do. But so do booze and men. It's just kind of different. And since I'm being monogomous lately, and my schedule doesn't allow as much time as previously for boozing...I'm getting back into books. Which isn't all that bad, really. Better for my liver in any case. Now if only I could get back into going to yoga/the gym, I'd be the all-around healthiest person I know.

If.

Wish me luck with my Christmas shopping this weekend. I have a feeling it's going to be stressful. I already had to have the awkward conversation with Stephan that my parents pretending he doesn't exist means that no, they're not giving him anything for Christmas. Which of course makes me feel terrible, because his family's been so great to me. I love my family, and I can't change them...but they can definitely make things difficult, even from a distance. *Big, fat sigh.*

Buuuut we're going out to dinner tonight. I'm excited. The eating's great in our hood. Since I'm making Indian Lentil Soup tomorrow with cumin and coriander, I'll forego that tonight...maybe italian? H'm....