Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 18:10
Subject: Re: one for the "gender" file
Hello. I just returned from having coffee with C, a break in my otherwise dull and lonely afternoon. Friedrichstrasse is only fifteen minutes away. We went to a pseudo-Starbucks where the cashier calls out the drink to the barista, just like at home, in a weird mix of German and English. Cue German accent: "Ein Medium Cappucino... Zwei Large Latte..." What the fuck is wrong with this country? I should be working on work-work but I'm feeling sort of flu/cold icky and having a hard time concentrating. Thank god for email. Scott
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 16:14
Subject: safely home
Annette has returned, in one piece, after a mercifully uneventful flight. She thought she might have had trouble getting out of Halifax but the weather wasn't quite as bad as feared and things went off more or less according to schedule.
She's now slumbering away, though I shall soon wake her, lest she completely fail to re-adjust her sleep schedule. While she was away two more schools requested interviews, so tonight she will have to consider what to do and send emails and wait for phone calls. More on this later.
I had my usual pre-arrival morning, fussing about cleaning the apartment, changing the linens, putting away laundry, rushing out to buy fresh bread, fruit and flowers. I suppose this makes me a considerate husband. I think it has more to do with self-respect, actually - how can you let a spouse return to a messy home? Don't you have standards?
I've actually just woken up from a nap myself - I've not been sleeping well these past few nights, and felt vaguely ill most of yesterday. (I stayed home, skipped training, went out for coffee with Carla but otherwise plodded along on some work-work.) It seems to be better today. We'll see how I feel after skating tonight.
Berlin is thawing. There wasn't much snow, but enough that the city is a gray, ugly, slushy mess today. The sky and streets are almost the same colour, a washed-out dirty gray-brown. Not attractive. Though it is safer for cycling, with all the ice and snow melting away.
So Annette thinks the interview went quite well. She might hear back as soon as Friday, and she wouldn't be too surprised if she received an offer. This is good, but problematic, as she has other interviews lined up later in February and it will be difficult to know whether to take the offer and save another exhausting trip, or wait and see what else happens (but we're getting ahead of ourselves already). She likes Halifax, and suspects (as I do) that I would like it too. Dalhousie is a good school, the people in the department were friendly and not too dysfunctional, even for academics. There really aren't too many bad points, except that the money is laughably bad, substantially less than I made twiddling my thumbs at my last job, substantially less than I currently am supposed to make working 3/4 time here. One doesn't pursue an academic career for the money, but at a certain point one's amour-propre demands fair compensation. The American schools are both less desirable places to live, but probably much better paid.
What to do, what to do? I actually have an easier time with the idea of her taking a job somewhere like Charlotte or Bowling Green because I know it would be temporary. We'd be there a few years, two to five at the most, then off again somewhere else. They may not be the best places to hang one's cat (which is where home is, in my book) but they'd at least be a different, potentially interesting experience. After that, we'd continue on our merry, wandering ways. But with Dalhousie, it's a good tenure-track job at a decent school in a nice Canadian city - in some senses this is the end of the journey, the goal, the final destination. It's entirely possible that we'd never leave. This of course terrifies me. (It also terrifies Annette, only less so.) I do not want to put down roots and become a permanent fixture anywhere. That is much too adult for my tastes. I'd rather poke about Europe for a while longer, do a year or two here, a year or two there, hop back and forth, divide my time between Berlin and New York, and so on. I'm not ready to settle down. But of course there are economic realities to consider, and I don't exactly wear the pants in this household, as the saying goes.
Whatever happens, it's going to be an interesting couple of weeks. A weird and interesting couple of weeks. To add to the fun, I'll be able to sell off a chunk of my stock on Tuesday. Now that won't be stressful....
Right, time to go wake up Sleeping Beauty.
Regards,
Scott
Date: Friday, January 28, 2000 16:04
Subject: linguistic notes
A disturbing linguistic note from yesterday:
On the BBC radio, the Russian foreign minister reported justifiying the war in Chechnya as "defending Europe's borders from barbarism and terrorism" (I may not have remembered exactly, but that's the gist of it).
From the Klemperer diaries, Nazi propaganda circa 1944: "defending Europe from barbarism and Bolshevism" (again, not an exact citation).
An unpleasant parallel, at the very least.
Date: Monday, January 31, 2000 15:11
Subject: stormy Monday
Everybody,
It was a stormy beginning to the week - this morning we awoke to high winds and rain lashing against the window. It's very comfortable in the bedroom, almost a little alcove with the bed surrounded by three walls, underneath a high, arched window. The perfect place to ride out a storm. But before too long the rain stopped and the sun appeared. The wind is still blowing hard, but it's a warm wind, almost ten degrees. I have the kitchen windows open, not wanting to waste a rare opportunity to blast some fresh air through the place in the middle of winter. It's going to be strange skating at the oval tonight, with soft ice and high winds, but hopefully no leaves or branches blown across the track.
I've just returned from the morning's errands, a puzzling and irritating visit to a couple of telephone stores to see what's involved in hooking up ISDN (it gives you multiple lines and a faster internet connection, but there are some setup costs and complexities) and then yet another stop at the travel agent with Annette. Now she's arranged this rather complex trip that involves flying from Berlin to Detroit, spending two days in Bowling Green for an interview, followed by a flight to Washington where she'll stay with friends for two days - the flight is probably no more expensive than two extra days in a hotel, and the visit will be more pleasant - before flying back to Detroit to catch flight to Charlotte for the second interview, followed by a flight back to Berlin from Charlotte a few days later. Yikes. It's a wonderful travel agent, though. We can't believe the fares they find for us.
This afternoon I am working, then I am off skating for a few hours, then I must work again. My job was beginning to look like "Soviet freelancing" - I pretend to work, they pretend to pay me - but it appears that they are about to pay me, so I'd better do some work. It's not as bad as all that, it's just that I've been a little frustrated by the predictable delays in sending me the materials I need to begin working. And I was feeling a bit lethargic and less than ambitious last week.
It was a lethargic week, last week. I'm still fighting a mild but lingering cold/flu bug, I think. I felt chilled and tired for a few days, and I still have a cough. (My skating friends are all sick too, so something is up.) The weather didn't help, first cold and gray, then less cold and gray. On the weekend a warm front blew in, with high winds, and alternating bands of showers and blue skies. (On the news last night, reports of winds over 100 km/h in some of the towns outside Berlin.) My energy recovered a little by Friday and after three days off training I felt able to punish myself with a hard skating workout. It was wonderful, though I collapsed in a stupor when I returned home that night.
On Saturday we did our usual, shopping and errands and loafing about, then later in the evening we set off for the "Long Night of the Museums." They do this several times per year in Berlin. The major museums all stay open past midnight; there are special events, one ticket is valid for all, and there are special bus lines that run between them. But it's too popular for it's own good. We walked up to the Martin Gropius Bau and were horrified by the mob waiting outside. "Night of the Long Lines," we christened it; then later "Long Night of the Sardines," after seeing the state of the buses. The crowd behaviour was a little puzzling. It's wonderful that people are so keen to participate in public events - New Year's Eve was so magical precisely because two million showed up - but occasionally it defies explanation. Why would you line up for two or three hours on Saturday night to see a museum exhibition that is going to be open again on Monday morning? So we gave up and spent the rest of the evening drinking beer with C in a café up near the Humboldt Uni.
The next morning, despite the beer, Annette and C went running and I went for my usual two hour ride in the Grunewald. When I came home, Annette was in bed. I joined her, and we slept for the rest of the afternoon. It was not a productive day. It was also Annette's birthday, but she was too tired to bother celebrating so we stayed home and ate frozen lasagna for dinner. I did manage to finish the second volume of the Klemperer diaries. Now I have to wait for the translation and publication of the post-war diaries. It might be faster to learn enough German to read it in the original.
And as for the rest of the week, nothing out of the ordinary. Working as much as I can, socializing (we have options most evenings and might have people over on the weekend, if we can get organized in time, which is doubtful) and training. Annette is feeling inspired to run the Hamburg marathon in mid-April, and I have the skating season to prepare for.
That's all. Oh, I almost forgot. I can finally sell some stock this week! I'm going to be very, very nervous for a few days. The share certificate is on its way to the broker, via courier. All I can do is wait and watch and decide when to pull the trigger, how much to sell and when. Nervous, nervous, nervous.
Regards,
Scott
