Writing a book is hard

Thank you everyone for the lovely messages and support.

You are wonderful.

I'm currently working for a fledging company that publishes school books and co-directing the English book for beginners. This is complicated because 1° I didn't learn English at school and 2° working is complicated and 3°I'm working for very bureaucratic people and I'm a bohemian freelancer who needs hours off to help tidy up apartments, empty houses and other fun tasks.

My partner is called F, and he is sweet, befuddled and very, very clever. He is learning Persian and spends his time comparing English to Persian (NO) and telling me amusing adventures of his youth. I like him. It's fun going to his apartment and working on the book, imagining the drawings and the dialogues and which accent to pick, AMerican or British? And which American? Which British? Lots of questions like that. It's great.

When we first met, he shook my hand, pecked my cheek and told me earnestly :"Don't fall for me, because I'm tired of girls falling for me." If you had told me I would come to be very fond of him then, I would have rolled my eyes.
But I am very fond of him. He's such an old romantic, always falling for the wrong guy, always depressed about love, and then incredibly perky and stimulating.

I'm very grateful to him for bearing up with my moods.

Can't wait to finish our preliminary work. How fun will it be to see the finished product!

Still looking for a title. It seems that every thing is taken: Connect, Listen up, New Springs, Apple Pie, Enjoy, Teamwork, Borders, New Borders, Discover...

If anyone has a snazzy suggestion, I'll send you delicious French sausage. Now if that isn't tempting...

Changes

I'm not an adventurous person. My idea of the perfect evening is a good book, some lapsang souchang tea, and maybe a cat purring somewhere in the house. But I have some adventurous sides. I like travelling, I like meeting new people in strange circumstances, and discovering new things.

This clumsy introduction to say: I sometimes surprise myself by doing out of character things.

Almost ten months ago, still shaky from my breakup, I asked a man for his number at a party and called him the next day. Subtle! None of the usual rules we are taught to apply in the seduction game counted then, because I was not after a relationship, just what we call in French an "aventure", a fling. I went for it with careless energy, not wondering if he thought I was crazy or weird, or investing huge amounts of emotion in our dealings. In retrospect, this probably explains why we got along so well from the start. Neither of us was pretending to be someone we were not. It saves time down the line.

Now of course we are going towards...something else. We have plans. He is cautious and commitment-phobish, and to a certain extent so am I. I don't want to move in with him, I am certainly not planning my life around him, but still. We have plans. Plans to spend New Year together. Plans when I come back from Berlin in November. Little plans, like making reservations in a nice restaurant to celebrate my academic success, and bigger plans, like vacations.

I don't feel secure with him. He keeps the distance, always, and I do too, in other ways. It's not safe and nurturing. It's something else. And I trust him more and more, with my feelings and with myself.

I never thought I would be happy in a relationship like this.

Maybe I am less needy, less insecure and less annoying.

But as my sister would laughingly point out, still a serial monogamist!

My Playlist of Post-Work Bliss

In a few days I should be done. After not sleeping a lot for what seems like a couple of months. I want to see it all ship shape and done; and then I will reward myself handsomely.

Like writing acknowlegments, imagining what you will do after the writing-incarceration is the best part of it all.

The fact that I'm even writing this instead of a pithy paragraph all about Voltaire and his take on pre-revolutionary constitutionalism in the texts of Benezet GIBBERISH ALERT GIBBERISH proves I need a nap. But it's only ten in the evening and I have seven more hours of work ahead of me.

OK. SO...Here is my playlist of things I want to do:

*Read books not for work but for pleasure. I have some great German books to read, including all of Tucholsky's short stoires. I have some Murakami I'm dying to start. I have a Maria Callas bio I'm dying to finish. And now I have to read all Trapedo's work so I can catch up with my friend L's blog on women's lit.

*Sing. Sing a song. Sing it loud...sorry. I haven't had time to learn any new pieces since...six months? Frack the neighbours, I'm getting my Bach on.

*Enjoy my office job and not try to find places to nap. Note: it is impossible to find places to nap, but I'm still trying.

*Run; stop exclusively eating chocolate-covered things; brush my hair every evening, a hundred strokes, the way my grandmother did.

*Get lost on my bike in Berlin. Go to salsa classes. Meet new friends. Actually keep in touch with all my friends and answer postcards and mails with something other than SOSOBUSYTALKSOON.

*Enjoy the last days of summer. It's been raining so much here, I think it will stop as soon as I am done with this baby.

*Sleep. Sleep more. Sleep and then have brunch.

*Plan my wonderful November holiday.

I should get back to it...I have a few good reasons to finish it, as you can see...

What's on your playlist?

Travels, tips and nudity

It's good to be back. You know you've been a bad, bad blogger when your sister tells you that you're not updating enough :)

I've been reading everybody's blogs but much too stressed out to write anything. I am very superstitious and am always afraid to jinx my good news until it's a hundred percent sure... But now I'm ready.

Here's my good news: I got an internship in Berlin, working for a BIG COMPANY, and I'll be doing environmental lobbying. In German. Pray for me. I will be there from July to early November, and I am stoked! I love Berlin more than I can tell, and I can't wait to rent a cosy flat and work and read and write my Masters on the weekend and go to concerts and take trains to Leipzig and Dresden, and eat masses of pastry. By the way, I will have in all probability enough room on my couch and in the aforementionned flat for visitors, so if anyone wants to spend time in Berlin, email me!
Ahem.

This brings me to my first request: does anyone have any advice on how to dress corporate in the summer? I am the everlasting student, so while my cupboards groan with the weight of a thousand witty T-shirts and ratty jeans, I do not seem to own anything that screams SERIOUS WORKER HERE! WATCH ME LOBBY, GIRLS AND BOYS!

Here comes my second request: I will be going to America on the 25th of April to visit my sister and family. I will be staying there for a measly 6 days, because my university is a pain. I will be staying in Boston for a couple of days, and then going off to Northampton. My sister will take care of the Northampton bit, but if anyone has a wonderful tip about a place I should see in Boston, send it in.

Life is busy. Apart from writing letters to big companies in Germany hoping they would want me and my passionate belief in wildlife conservation, I have been working and working. After my uni term is finished, I have to write and deliver a paper for my other Masters diploma and it will be gruelling work as well. So I have decided that I will only have one week of real holiday this summer, beginning of June. The boyfriend and I are trying to organize it, but since he is going to Brazil (jealous), Italy (ditto) and probably a million other places as well, it's a bit complicated. So far we want to go to Greece. And yes you will get postcards.

In the past month I have also done a naked reading for a squatters' happening, written my first international law essay and ran a lot.

The naked reading was one of the most bizarre things ever. A girl in my class, M, is currently living in a squat next to my parents' house, a very posh neighbourhood. It's a huge empty building, with architects and students living in each flat. No hot water and they steal the electricity from the un-thrilled neighbours. They are constantly being threatened with eviction, and since the rents in Paris are astronomical and the lodging situation dire, they decided to stage a big happening to raise awareness about their story. M asked me if I would participate in her "naked reading". At first I was curious why she picked me from all the other people in the class. I found the concept intriguing: we would be in one of the bathrooms in the building, and while two of the girls would take a bath, I would read texts out loud. I like reading out loud. So I accepted.
As I arrived in the squat, I realized that there were a lot of people around. Suddenly being naked in front of an audience didn't feel so carefree and easy. And then I met the owner of the bathroom, who would be taking a bath with M, and she smiled at me. She was stunningly beautiful, in a goth way. As I took in her flawless face with its vivid eye makeup, she whispered: "Do you mind if I wash my hair? I'm covered in sperm."

From then on I felt quite comfortable. We made tea, and then took our clothes off. A curtain separated us from the crowd. They could have a glimpse of us, but mostly they could hear my voice, the soft splashing of the water, and the giggles we shared. Anyway, I was fascinated by the reactions our happening provoked. The men were shy, but many women came to talk to us, and sometimes took their clothes off too, sitting on the warm tile floor.

Some women told me they missed a sense of community between other women and themselves. Some women told me that they hadn't felt so peaceful in a long time. It was quite lovely.. We felt free to be who we were: young, old, fat, flawed, thin, muscular. No one was judging. It felt as if we had created an instant community of acceptance just by facing the gaze of others and being brave enough to put ourselves at risk.

It was a bit like blogging.