Scrapbook A listing of works in progress, projects on the go, things that will appear here in the near (or possibly distant) future: Mauerfalltag Events and personal significance, ten years ago and this week. job-hunting Perverse misunderstandings, a deliberate mindfuck, my post-retirement mood of highly contrarian anti-ambitious behaviour. bad service Cocktail bar, bank, BVG, on and on. language/symbology "sonderaktion" makes my blood run cold S1: Wannsee - Oranienburg Polizei next to crematorium on the way to IKEA "Wir grüßen alle unsere ausländische Mitbürger" What's up with that stupid moaning? Why do Germans insist on dubbing the the soft-core porn films they show on TV, and why does the moaning sound so completely wrong? Definitely want some RealAudio samples for this one... miscellaneous ideas Viktor Klemperer consumer product fetishes bourgeois squeegee kids quest for the longest Aldischlange other Berlin, 14.01.00 - Life is indeed returning to normal after a long and hectic holiday season. Annette and I have been catching up, relaxing, doing a little shopping, getting back into the work groove. It's been pleasant. We've had blue skies until this morning, which cheer us immensely. The cat is well; alarmingly frisky, even. I confess to feeling a little ambitious, all of sudden. I want to write. I want to work on this site. I even want to earn some money, which will of course take time away from other things. However, as I said when I accepted the job offer a few weeks ago, "I'm not getting off my ass and doing anything creative when I'm barely working at all, so there's not much to lose by working more." Plus we won't be pfennigless all the time, which has grown wearisome. I'm actually feeling a little guilty about not having done much (or earned much) these past four months, though I've enjoyed the break from reality. I read this in Slate the other day, from a brief essay on moving to Paris for no apparent reason, and thought it a near-perfect description of my own predicament: About 18 months ago, my wife, Tabitha, and I were on an airplane when I began to complain about adulthood. One of the many things I dislike about being a grown-up is the compulsion to have a purpose in life. People are forever asking why you are doing whatever you happen to be doing and before long you succumb to the need to supply an answer. The least naturally ambitious people can have ambition thrust upon them in this way. Once you've established yourself as a more or less properly functioning adult, it is nearly impossible to just go somewhere and screw off. I like to think that in some small way, I've managed to "just go somewhere and screw off" for at least a year. Another piece of my personal puzzle fell into place a few weeks ago, when I asked myself why I felt so curiously enthusiastic about being part of a mixed gay/straight social milieu: I don't particularly care for traditional gender norms and family structures. I prefer a world of flexible, shifting identities, constructed not imposed. However, my own preferences (or inhibitions) are such that I can only subvert these norms by rejecting the traditional male role of breadwinner, both through my unwillingness to produce anything that I would need to win bread for, and lately by not winning much bread, period. When I mentioned this to a friend, we agreed that the obvious answer to my sexual/vocational identity crisis is that I should find a management job, so that I might "get paid for taking it in the ass" - killing two birds with one stone, more or less.