stay true

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

sugar sugar
posted by miromi miromi Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

i heard the news about new york city and was hit emotionally so deep and hard that I couldn't think for a few minutes. new york... it's my home. Sitting here in Berlin, watching all the flames and fire, I almost started freaking out, as if it had disapeared. but it has not. all the people and beauty and culture and craziness that make New York what it is, they're all still there...I've turned so many times and seen the WTC in the sky, illuminated, framing so many events and crazy happenings in my life... i felt a strange urge to fly back home. --part of it was irrational, nervousness that I'd be stuck in Europe forever! (no!) and part of it was knowing that everything from now on would be completely different
posted by miromi miromi Tuesday, September 11, 2001

posted by miromi miromi Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Monday, September 10, 2001

today i was making reservations, or trying to, in hamburg. why does my german always oil up at the most useless moments? at parties when everybody's smashed or with random strangers in cafes? my incompetence is reserved for those crucial times when I'm trying to clarify something like flight plans. I forget how to say letters of the alphabet. germans always mess up my name too--they're always expecting something wonderfully exotic and mystical to go along with my appreance--and I have to say that six times over, painfully aware of my accent.
the travel agent had a weird haircut. I suspected him of dying his hair brown to cover up the gray and it was really long, trailing down his back in an exaggerated mullet. he had a black leather jacket and a huge, pointed nose. it was like a sharp knife. He kept switching to English which annoyed me, because his English wasn't that great and I was doing OK in German. or at least I thought I was.
It was a painful experience escaping from there, but now I am going to Tunisia in the fall and that makes it worth it. we walked around looking for a Lonely Planet Tunisia. For some reason all the German versions were extra touristy and touted big luxury hotels on the coach with scary photographs of German retirees in string bikinis. We found it and I spent too much money on some English language books, one of them a fat Margaret Atwood paperback and I was about to make a comparison about how paperback books here look different from paperback books back home--there's something less glossy about the covers, they're more simple, and alternately boring or elegant, whichever way you're thinking that day--but I was really tired of these constant here/there conversations.
I sat researching Tunisia. on the water, next to where they were setting up a CDU tent. The workers were blasting r&b which seemed inappropriate for a CDU party, because the CDU is the German Lite version of the Republican party. (see! comparisons again!) the only difference is they aren't into blowing people up with bombs and guns so much and the electric chair.
these thoughts accumulated in my head: Tunisia has 9 million inhabitants and 4 million tourists visiting every year. of those, 800,000 fly in from Germany. Everyone in Germany has been to Tunisia at some point, even the people who haven't been born yet. I'm not sure how the statistics go on people who are dead. It is safe and there are a lot of beautiful Roman ruins, all the wild animals are virtually extinct, and the lions they fed the christians to in the Roman colosseums probably came from Tunisia, which exported lions quite gleefully. Star Wars was filmed there and there really is a place called Tatouine.
Me, I just need to get away and get on the road for a short time. Wander around aimlessly. Bump into the European tourists and sit in ruins trying to imagine what the ruinated dead would think. and then wander some more...
posted by miromi miromi Monday, September 10, 2001

posted by miromi miromi Monday, September 10, 2001

Sunday, September 09, 2001

hamburg: I woke up with a huge hangover this morning and had flashing memories of last night: running around with big groups of people at the Schlagermove and singing along to German drinking songs and totally dorking out. There were men and women in neon orange jumpsuits handing out test tubes full of Jägermeister, sunflowers everywhere and lots and lots of polyester. Lots of polyester. After night fell the mating rituals continued around the floats and we would alternately hug and scatter every time the rain fell, which it did again and again in sporadic and violent blasts. One of the highlights was seeing Jürgen Drews, Schlager superstar, waving and sunglassed from one of the floats, surfing on his former glories and not ashamed, in fact proud. The drunken aftermath was fascinating, and I wonder how many men stumbled on purpose to apologize to the stunned women they "accidentally" collided into. We stood outside the fairgrounds, too cheap to fork out the 50 Marks, but entranced by the decadence of it all.
Summer is gone already. I think everyone has been saying that over and over again for the past week. I got a raise and have been splurging on black, all black--black cardigan, tight black Eurotrash lycra pants, and big clunky shoes with thick soles. Hamburg has miserable weather but there is something romantic about that too, tripping all over the cobblestone streets on my weekend visits with a cheap umbrella in one hand and feeling pretty in the drizzle. It's always drizzling here.
We went down to the fishmarket this morning. It closes at a strangely early time so you have to rub the sleep out of your eyes and run. It's always crowded and full of screaming fishhawkers breathing smoke and fire, handing out baskets of fruit and grapes. Half the people are here because nothing is open on Sundays, grocery stores included, and they clamour for eel and smoked mackerel, good for a long long Sunday brunch. Which is what we did... on the balcony, on a plastic table watching the wind batter the trees back and forth, toasted buns topped with pickle and onion and fish, small tomatoes salted and peppered, and tea, lots of tea. Just sitting there eating and eating and bloated and then taking a late afternoon nap.

posted by miromi miromi Sunday, September 09, 2001

Thursday, September 06, 2001

The first Berlin comic book festival! i am away for the weekend at Schlagermove so i only saw the opening night exhibition and felt more at home than I have in a long time, poking in and out of the crowds of smiling people. the only good thing about winter is that I'll have to stay inside and go clubbing less and draw more!!!
and here is more of what I've been reading:
Strapazin
James Kochalka

posted by miromi miromi Thursday, September 06, 2001

Tuesday, September 04, 2001

i'm back in action... august, like april, was one of those months.
grin.

hof ghosts
posted by miromi miromi Tuesday, September 04, 2001