The things we miss

My grandfather is dying. He has cancer, it's spread, and his doctors say we have to wait to give him palliative treatments because he doesn't feel enough pain yet. My twisted sense of humor loves that sentence. My mother is nursing him for a couple of days. I can go to London in November during my holiday, but who knows if he will still be living at home then?

Nice summer.

I feel like calling people up and boring them with my sadness, but instead I bore my sister who is contractually obligated to listen to my moans. I feel like not going to work this morning. Stay in bed and eat crackers. Except I am still running a fever so this could be stupid.

I don't experience a lot of homesickness here in Berlin. I miss people...But I love living here. Yet these past few days I realise that I want to help out my mother, who after losing her mother is watching her father deteriorate every day. Nothing I can do for the moment. Except listen to her.

I'm grieving for my grandmother too. It's a summer of loss, but also a summer of fun, of meeting people, of dancing and of happiness.

It's never black or white.

So it really has been a nice summer. As well. As well as being a horrible one.

And I seem to have no more crackers left.

Salsa makes everything better

"WHO CARES HOW BAD YOU ARE. Life is too short to watch the others shake their hips while you get drunk on the side because you're shy."

Our salsa teacher is wonderful.

And I totally agree. The most satisfying moments of my life came when I decided not to care how bad I was at something and just enjoyed how I felt, how I moved, how I danced.

Letting go

I still have bursts of anger. They come without warning. I'm enjoying a cup of tea, reading a book (today, a hilarious tome debunking homeotherapy) and I just get this ball of churning anger inside me. I get angry so rarely that it's always a (disagreable) surprise when it occurs. I want to punch a wall. I want to smash windows. I want to punish people who get away with being horrible to others. As you can imagine, reading the newspaper is not advisable when I'm in this state.

I have several theories on why I get so angry. My hatred of confrontation makes me repress a lot of feelings. I suffer from depression and when I crawl out of it, anger is usually my first emotion, maybe because it's the opposite of depressive lethargy.

None of this really matters, except that I never know how to let go. I've tried breaking things, but this is only a very short-term solution. I've tried getting angry in front of people, but usually burst into tears, undermining the whole effect. I've tried writing long, psychotic letters or mails I don't send, but their baleful presence in my Draft box makes me feel terrible: small blobs of quivering irrationality, there, reminding me that I have lost my temper.

Running works sometimes. I also talk loudly to my imaginary target. This can get weird. I have no long term solution.

ANGER. I get so angry sometimes; I dream that I am a vigilante superhero and that I can find people and scare the stuffing out of them. Pf course, in these dreams I also ride a dinosaur to work. We're talking heavy realism, here.

If I ever get my hands on a decent superhero outfit, I may well do just that.

Office meltdown

I like my Kolleagues but lack of sleep + rain-induced headache= irritation.

I am so tired of the baby talk. All the time. Between the moans that they will never be "a young mother" because they are 25, and that having kids at 30 means you are an old mother (thus depriving your child of precious time in your company), I am thoroughly bored.

THEY JUDGE ME. All the time. Because I get annoyed when they go on and on about how old parents are terrible. "If your father were younger he wouldn't be sick and burden you."
Hmmm...perceptive and kind comment!

Because I say having children isn't fun all the time:
"You are so negative." No. I just think we shouldn't idealise motherhood and say it is a bed of roses 24/7. And yes, I find newborns boring. No, I won't apologise.

They keep making comments like "careers are less important than children."
To whom? To you? To me? Can't we agree that everyone is different? You know what? Maybe if men pulled their weight, if governments made paternal leave compulsory, there wouldn't be any discrimination against women of child-bearing age in the workplace! Let's talk about that instead of moralising.

I know I'm tired and cranky. I shouldn't bite their noses off, because they are sweet and helpful and bear with me, thus deserving a medal.



Note that I bore them quite as much: today's book was a historical essay on code-breaking and the submarine battles during the Second World War. I talked and bored.

Cool topic though.

Split identity

I'm reading a wonderful book for history nerds, called Masculinity and the middle-class Home in Victorian England. Part of why this book is so much fun is that the anxiety linked to the place of man in his family, his role as father and husband and his socio-economic rights is still very much a topic of thought and controversy.

I could quote the entire book, from the description of marital tasks, sexual mores and club culture in 19th century England, but this passage held particular meaning for me.

"The more alienating the employment, the greater the tendency to conduct life in separate compartments. The classic literary expression of this split comes in William Hale White's autobiographical novel, which draws on his own experience as a junior employee at Somerset House in the 1850s.

I cut off my office life from my life at home so completely that I was two selves. I was a great comfort to me to think the moment the clock struck seven that my second self died, and that my first self suffered nothing by having anything to do with it..."

Now that I have started working in a office, I understand this so completely. I feel like a split personality. It's the language thing as well. In German, I'm demure. I know no swear words. In French I am...different. Articulate. I love swearing in English. It doesn't feel real. So at the office I'm a slightly stupid, nice girl. At home I become me again.

I miss my family and friends most of all when I transition back to myself.

All in all, I wonder how many of us change drastically in the work place.

Done

I sent it this evening, while munching on some candy. I thought I would feel only relief, but instead I'm a bit sad. My paper is off to be judged and critiqued, and I put so much into it, so much energy and research and sleepless nights.
My poor little paper.


So...sleep. You know you're sleep-deprived when...

*you have the shakes and can't type anymore
*your boss asks you if you are ill and when you demur tells you that she knows a good family doctor. And then sends you his phone number by email. Twice.
*you fall asleep when you lean against a wall waiting for a bus.

Now onto some Berlin exploration!

I feel like I should celebrate, a bit, but I'll wait until my supervisor tells me it's shit. Or not.

In the meantime, this candy is really delicious.

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?