¿Hablas alemán?

1. Ok, so I have a Twitter account. I opened one to follow what I thought was Christopher Walken, after reading somewhere about his dry, witty tweets. Like everyone else, I soon found out the tweets were written by someone else - some tweet charlatan - and stopped following them. That's the extent of my Twittering. I have never, personally tweeted - how sad for my handful of followers! Despite this, I've been contacted by several young, horny women who decided to "follow" me, and sent me emails to that effect. They usually say thing like "Let's face it, girls want to get fucked too", etc. That's all well and good, but a) is the fact that women like sex supposed to be news? b) Does my complete lack of tweets make these people think I don't know about the existence of female desire? And c) why on earth would these young women think I have any interest in their quest to get laid, or their mission to let people know that they'd like to get laid? Twitter, then, at least for me, is quite a bit like MySpace - a place to be contacted by spammers and vagina-peddlers. I fear, then, that Twitter is well on its way to being eliminated from my world much as MySpace was. One can only tolerate so many amorous teenagers.

2. Are you ever bored? I remember using the term "bored" as a kid, but as an adult, I'm too busy to be bored. I mean, sure, when I'm stuck at a gate waiting for a delayed flight, or waiting to see a doctor, or standing around in line - maybe that's boredom. Or is that more just captive in a specific place when you could, if you were free to leave, do all kinds of non-boring things? When people tell me they're bored, I honestly have no idea what they're talking about. You?

3. Hail. Germany has it.

4. I took four years of Spanish in public school. You'd think, after four years, I'd have a pretty firm grip on the language. Nope! Got A's and B's in the subject, but I never did speak it very well, although I do understand it more or less if it's spoken very slowly and constructed with really basic vocabulary. In contrast, I've learned a whole lot of German in a little over a week. Four hours a day in a classroom in which no English is spoken makes a big difference. The class is conducted in German and we speak only German, with lots of hand signals and pantomime thrown in. The class is made up of several Turks, a Filipina, two Americans, a Mexican, two Kosvars, a Romanian and a Hungarian, so falling back on any particular language to communicate is difficult to impossible - although a lot of English gets spoken during our break.* German is like a code I am beginning to crack, and it's really exciting and fun! Take that, uninspiring Spanish teachers of my youth.

5. There's a 4th of July celebration planned on one of the local bases. I can't imagine anything I would like to do less than queue up to get on base only to watch fireworks and deal with the clusterfuck that whole scene sounds like it will be. Hell, I don't even deal with it in the US. Instead, we're meeting new friends for Mexican food. I had the worst Mexican food of my life in Inverness several years ago - we'll see if this is any better. Report to follow.

6. My home state is going out of business, it seems. Perhaps I can buy Big Sur or La Jolla at a deep discount before they close.

7. I am unabashedly in love with my new iPhone. Materialistic? Shallow? I don't care. Having a smart phone means never having to take a cell phone call again. Email, available everywhere! It's fucking fantastic.

The gorgeous day awaits. We may even get our first home-grown tomato from our little garden today. This alone is cause for celebration. Tschüss, mis amigos!

* It's truly amazing how many people here say, "My English isn't very good" before launching into admirably competent English. If only my German and Spanish were as good as their "not very good" English. *sigh* I'll get there.

no break should have to be this long

Back to writing for real today.

Fuck, it feels good. Finally.

Drive-by-blogging

Was ist das?

Bad hair, bad dancing and bad sex

I'd completely forgotten about Mr. Deity - they quit making episodes or something a while back, and I drifted away from their brilliance in frustration. It appears that they're back now, and have been for some time, even, so I'm going to hustle off and catch up. Enjoy!

Saturday morning clothing angst

So J and his new army friend M are out together this morning, shopping for a bike for M. M showed up here in khaki shorts and a blue t-shirt. J was also wearing khaki shorts and a blue t-shirt.

They were equally horrified by this, while I found it to be funny, of course.

J changed his shirt before he left.

Am I weird that I don't understand why?

my less than charitable self, revealed

I just finished a book I started reading while I was still in San Diego. It wasn't a particularly long book, nor was it challenging in any way; no, these things were not the reasons I couldn't finish it. The reason: I was stunningly average.

Why did I continue?

Because, dear readers, it was written by an accomplished, well-published, sought-after free-lance writer. One who's written for major newspapers and famous magazines. Her blog - yes, I researched this person - says she's published over 1000 stories and that she's working on her third book. So, truthfully, I slogged through this book because I wanted to know: how did this person become so successful?

I'm not (always) a spiteful person. I wish this author no ill will, truly, and it's possible that the book I read wasn't an example of her best work, although that does seem unlikely. But as I dragged through to the end, I couldn't help but think, you know, here's a woman with a compelling story to tell, and the time and means to write it well, and yet I feel like she showed me nearly nothing of herself or her experiences. I don't know her at all, and I don't know much about what she seemed to be trying to tell me, either.

This is especially frustrating this week, when the ability to write anything of substance seems to have completely left my fingertips. Maybe I'll go read some Laurie Colwin and see if that gives me my groove back.

keine Erdbeeren heute

This is what it looks like from the upstairs balcony today. It's supposed to look like this all weekend. Bleh.

Perhaps not the best time for a bike ride. Maybe Monday, after the Ikea truck comes? Or will I instead become enthralled with constructing my Gorm storage shelves?

I know, total excitement. I don't know how I manage.