You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January, 2008.
It’s overrated if you don’t have a gardener or a pool boy. I mean it. Really.
Say goodbye to the Lady of Leisure.
I got a job, a great job* in a great office doing what I do best. It will involve very long days, mind reading, some travel, creative problem solving, politicking, sleepless nights, 4 tons of coffee beans, endless supply of Spanx, a few new pairs of shoes, an open mind and a cocktail dress.
The gods slapped me upside the head late last year and I finally got the message. I’m not a fan of those head shots. So I’m changing, I’m moving forward.
While being a lady of leisure has been fun, it was also pretty uninspiring and soul-numbing. I mean really, the cats are great and all, but aside from litter box duties and snacks, they don’t require a lot of care. And Sparky? I stopped cooking long ago. He’s fine with lunch meat out of the package, a protein shake and a housekeeper. Kids are out of the picture, so really, there’s no point and life is unbearably long when its pointless.
It also left me dependant.
So I made up my mind and got a job. What does a girl need with a new job, aside from the wardrobe and shoes? I am nothing if not an accessorizer.
New Digs.
Yep, I’m moving to Hamburg proper.
I’ll be coming back to Boweltown a couple times a month, but my main base will be Hamburg for the foreseeable future.
New job, new place. I have no idea what else might be coming down the pike, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Well, right now I am, by the light of day. I’m much braver in the daylight. Tonight when I attempt to sleep, I’ll be panicked and terrified, but as long as I get up in the morning ready for the fight, I’ll be okay, right?
*Now, before any of the expat newbies think this is easy, it’s not. It was a lucky break pursued hot and fast with a lot of hard work. I’m sure there are many ways to find employment that I’m not aware of and until recently, I wasn’t all that interested. I am not a good person to contact as to how to find a job. I don’t know.
My story? I saw an opportunity and worked it until I beat it dead. I finagled and maneuvered and I twisted my American self in until I was absolutely essential. Let me re-phrase that. What I do is essential for this company, I’m not. It didn’t have to be me. It could have been anyone with my set of skills. What set me apart was my doggedness at gaining this position. And no I’m not telling you the name of my company.
Moral of this story: If you want something, if you want to change your circumstances, you can do it, just don’t wait for someone to come knocking on your door. They won’t in America and they won’t in Krautland.
In my vigorous attempt to avoid doing that which needs to be done, I’ve cleaned all the eye care products from my house including, but not limited to, an entire shelf in my medicine cabinet. Wow.
In my last Costco run before I left Cali, I stopped by the eye care section out of habit. It was only when my hand was on the Value Twin Pack did I remember and think “I don’t need this! Yay” followed immediately by, “I can spend that 20 bucks on Sharpies!“
It is incredible to be able to see without glasses. Only those who wear glasses and know the pain of falling asleep with glasses on, waking up to bent frames and a red, sore spot on the bridge of your nose, can fully understand the freedom that comes with not having to wear glasses anymore.
Things I can do that I couldn’t:
Go in and out of the house in the winter and see. Wake up and see, have sex and see. Open the hot dishwasher and see, open the hot oven and see. Fall asleep and see up until the last moment. Shop for sunglasses and wear sunglasses all the time without having to buy sunglasses large enough to fit over my regular frames because my prescription is too strong to put into sunglasses frames without having some sort of head crane contraption to hold them in place.
Seeing is awesome.
P.S. I didn’t have unopened cleaning solution or I would have passed that a long because, man, that stuff is expensive. and I kept my hello kitty contact case to put melted lipstick in. I don’t have any melted lipstick because I’m more of a gloss girl, but just in case. I’m clever like that. And it’s Hello Kitty.
Last night’s fortune cookie. I kid you not.
- Senseless regulations can make you angry.
Throw in
- Submitting to someone else’s sense of authority makes you itch violently
- Walking in high heels on cobblestones is a talent you will never have.
and I would swear they were written just for me. I usually use the GBitS as my fortune teller of choice, but those cookies are gettin’ good.
********************
Jet leg and work have kicked my ass for the last week and a half. I was up in Hamburg last week. Yeah, like hours after we got home.
I didn’t sleep for more than 2-3 hours a night until last Sunday. Then I’d get out of bed and work for 12-16 hours.
It’s not that I didn’t try. Nothing worked. I literally stayed up -no naps, no dozing- for more than 48 hours hoping to break Insomnia, but she is a stronger bitch than I.
I tried sleeping pills and warm milk. No effect. I moved on to beer and wine. Nope, didn’t work. Then I went for the Judy Garland - vodka and sleeping pills. No noticeable difference. I was wide awake with Anxiety keeping Insomnia company in my brain as I tossed and turned.
So Saturday night, Tat offered to help me beat both Insomnia and Anxiety with dinner, drinks, and girl talk deep into the night. We left around 2 am and Sparky drove.
I think it was when I told Sparky that I was seeing people on the side of the road and that I was warning him just in case it was a premonition because there were soo many people walking on the side of those dark roads that he started to worry.
(I just want to say that it could have actually been a premonition and not sleep deprivation induced psychosis and by mentioning it, I prevented a serious accident but because I prevented said accident, I can’t prove it was a premonition.)
Having had auditory hallucinations once, long, long ago in a drug den far, far away, I knew I needed a teensy bit of sleep or the commander was going to come back and make me cut paper into perfect squares for no reason other than I needed perfectly cut square paper. My mind is not a fun place to reside.
I have a serious employment negotiation going on with long term ramifications. I have a ton of work and people depending on me. I have a household to run, dentist appointments to avoid, doctors to see, dry cleaning to pick up. I made pages and pages of to do items that just got longer the more I did. How does that happen? Do lost socks become items on To Do lists?
So I dropped all the balls and got some sleep. There is a bit of fall out, but nothing disastrous. Funny. Dropping all those balls seemed so dangerous, so catastrophic, but when I did, the world did not come to a screeching halt. Does this mean the world does not revolve around me? The horror.
I spent all day Sunday in bed with Catherine Coulter and dozed on and off. Finally… Finally… I broke the cycle. Cat napping with actual cats and no human in sight did the trick. No sharing the bed. No slight noise or bed shift to wake me up. And when I did wake? I fell right back into the Wizard’s Daughter and then into sleep again.
I’m no longer seeing people, but I keep hearing them. They say I need another day, this time with Julie Garwood.
Procrastination, my friend. It’s so nice to see you.
Jen: Hey, if you have some Belle and Sebastian, please put it on.
Sparky, sitting in front of his computer in our home office, grimaces. Having copied all the music I picked up in the States (Thanks GBF!!!), I knew he had it. As I went about my morning chores - feeding cats, getting coffee, making bed and all, I wanted to hear a little Tigermilk.
Defensive off the bat because I failed to find a “Hollywood” scriptwriter yesterday (Germans and their specific specifications) and I hate failing at anything, he picked the wrong time to get all anal retentive about music.
Sparky: Shaun listed this under rock music? Why didn’t he label it whiny?
Jen: Dude, just go to Amazon and see how its listed. I love it.
Tigermilk plays in the background. Sparky is slowly simmering. I do understand this type of torture. The moment The Who comes on, my ears begin to bleed and it feels like my brain is being tweaked with a kabob stick thing.
Sparky: So where’s Belle?
Jen: Sparkles. (Insert not so patient sigh here) There is no Belle and there is no Sebastian. Its like Pink Floyd. There is no Pink.
Sparky: “Is that Belle?” referring to a female vocal.
I ignore him.
A few minutes later…
Sparky: You know why this bothers me? There might not be a Pink, but Pink Floyd’s music sounds like Pink Floyd and there might not be any Cocteau Twins, but their music sounds like Cocteau Twins. This music does not sound like Belle and Sebastian.
Jen: Do you want to know who Belle and Sebastian are? They are characters from a book. Sebastian being a boy and Belle being his dog. This music sounds like a Belle and Sebastian.
Sparky: No, it does not.
Jen: Yes. It. Does.
Sparky: Nope. Does not.
Jen: Sparky. This is Ri. Dic. Ulous. It totally sounds like a Belle and Sebastian… blah, blah, blah.
I looked over 5 minutes into my speech and Sparky was totally laughing at me. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
I don’t know why it was so important to me to convince him that Belle and Sebastian’s music sounds like their band name, but it was. I hate this part of my personality. Argh.
I am known throughout the family as the Christmas Nazi, going to extreme lengths to make Christmas perfect if it kills me and those around around me. Clenched teeth and an unreasonable idea of the perfect Christmas keep me wired until I fall exhausted into bed around 2 am Christmas morning only to wake up early and disappointed for not achieving what I deem is a minimum level of holiday joy.
If it only affected me, I think the family would just leave me to my own devices, but it doesn’t. I pull everyone into my Christmas hell merriment. Jeff prefers death over my manic “What? You didn’t string the tree in blue cranberries? What do you mean blue cranberries don’t exist? It can’t be Christmas without blue cranberries. FIND ME BLUE CRANBERRIES!!!”
Sparky gets the worst of it, not having grown up in my family. He has had no idea how to handle any of it. He kinda sits there, shell-shocked, rocking back and forth and humming some made up tune, wondering what in the hell he did to deserve the last verbal attack. This year he learned a little from my brother and in my weak attempts to control things, shot back with a “… I’m ’bout to show you how my pimp hand is way strong.” And I would just laugh and let it go, whatever it had been the moment before.
Jeff introduced the Kraut to hip-hop and if I have to hear him talk about riding through the ‘hood listening to Dre Dog one more time… Sparky did actually drive through the ‘hood listening to Dre Dog late at night, but it does not give him the street cred to start quoting Snoop or Ike Turner.
Well, this year, I just didn’t have the Nazi in me. It had been a really tough year. Tough in ways I can’t write about. Tough in ways that rocked my world and shattered many of my dreams. I flew out of here in November, almost broken and in desperate need of my friends and family and Nordstrom’s customer service.
This year I totally dropped the Christmas ball. I didn’t go overboard on gifts. I didn’t knock myself out looking and purchasing the perfect stocking stuffers. I left the socks to my more than capable sister, taking care of her and her only. I bought and wrapped all the presents early and forgot about them. Then I focused on shoe shopping, bar-hopping and day trips to SF.
I didn’t fill out my Christmas spreadsheet. I didn’t follow my long established Christmas schedule. I didn’t keep track of every dollar and I was just fine with that. I actually forgot things, like list making and over-analyzing.
I think we put about 10 ornaments on the tree and Sparky got to put up the star. The star is a very big deal in our house. And there wasn’t even a fight this year as to whose year it is.
I drank wine all night and went outside for cigarettes talks with my brother.
And you know what? Christmas still happened. It wasn’t perfect, but it was great. I controlled nothing except the wine opener and nothing fell apart.
At one point, with my wine glass full and eyes a little glassy and a smile on my lips, Jeff looked over at me and started laughing.
“The torch has been passed. You look just like a Weinsheimer.” Weinsheimer being my mother’s maiden name and I guess it was the ever present glass of wine that Weinsheimer girls hold with poise and grace at all times that gave away my until now latent membership. It could have also been the carelessness, mirth and I-just-don’t-give-a-shit attitude that usually only hits Weinsheimer women when they’re in their cups.
Now that I’m older, I see how I have continued the familial legacy of all encompassing control and the need for that control in the whirlwind chaos that is life and the overwhelming desire to let it all fly away because damnit, its hard to hold on to everything. It is so tiring and fruitless. I also see how a glass or bottle of wine allowed those women to let go. I’m working on finding another way, but this Christmas, a good Chianti did the job.
Hell. No wonder they’re so much fun.
I’m not sure about everyone else, but I enjoyed this Christmas far more than ever before.
I’m baaaack. Or rather, we’re back. Sparky and I attempted to leave San Francisco last week, but got caught up in that storm and our flight was cancelled twice. Twice!
I had it all planned out. I had my going away soiree at Smitty’s. I figured out that when a hangover dulls my senses (yeah, I know), it also dulls my anxiety. I can never dull my anxiety, neither with self medication nor Dr. prescribed medication. In fact, all attempts to banish said beast results in a bigger, badder anxiety army, the likes of which even Sun Tzu would raise the white flag.
So, snockered the night before our first attempt (thanks Blair) I was in perfect condition for the flight. With my anxiety shelved and tired from staying up late, I figured I’d add a shot of Nyquil and actually be able to sleep on the flight. My dad showed up to drive us to the airport, took one look at Jeff and I, laughed and did a McDonalds run because Jeff and I were in such bad shape. It took me 8 hours to finish my sausage McMuffin. All of which were subsequently spent sitting at the gate, waiting for a plane to arrive in the middle of hurricane winds. Perfect hangover wasted.
The second cancellation was due to a faulty strut in the landing gear. I was quite alright with this cancellation as I would rather not have a problem landing. I know what happens when a car strut goes out. I really don’t want to be there when it goes out on a 747.
Sparky made a comment that if we were cancelled yet again we’d have to take it as a sign and just stay in the bay area. We’d have had the cats shipped over and leave the loft to rot.
We weren’t cancelled and flew back Business class. Why is it when I fly Business class, we get home early and without problems? And when flying peasant class, I’m stuck for hours? Because Virgina, there isn’t a Santa Claus and you were very, very naughty in a past life.
Those who know me probably figured out that I had a fantastic time thus the reason you have heard neither hide nor hair of me. I was having way too much fun, indulging in hedonistic delights that would make my mother proud and my aunts gasp. There might be a phrase I used to use that is no longer valid. I would love to write out all my stories and share the sordid details, but as people I now work with read this thing, I have to censor myself. I’m thinking of starting another blog, but frankly, I don’t have the heart for it anymore.
I’m in a new and different place. I’ve shed a skin that was loose before I left. Somewhere over the polar ice cap is the woman I was before and can never be again. It might be responsible for the 20 pounds I lost in SF. How I can eat anything I want in the bay area and still lose a dress size I do not know, but I am NOT complaining. It might have been the stairs in my brother’s house. A three bedroom condo in which there is one room per floor resulting in four floors with the kitchen and the living room separated by a flight. The architect must have been an ass man because my gluts are rock solid and I worked out exactly twice.
Other than spending a fortune on eye surgery, shoes with a minimum 3 inch heel, fantastic ass enhancing denim, breast enhancing bras, and tons of MAC eye shadows, this trip gave me back my mojo. All the confidence I fake on a daily basis came home to roost for various reasons. I’m planning on keeping it.
I see my life clearer now. I see the future unclouded by doubt, second guesses, empty promises and unfulfilled potential. And while the Lasik surgery brought my sight to 20/15, it had nothing to do with this new vision. This was brought on by endless days walking around my city, everlasting lattes and bottomless glasses of vodka that never delivered the numbness I sought, but rather tidal waves of emotion and Technicolor possibilities. This vision was sharpened by the achingly bright blue skies and cutting Pacific wind; Fortified by old friends and encouraged by new ones.
On my 30th birthday, I sat in my apartment in Oakland and decided I needed a different life. One that took me off the path I was on and I gave myself a year to figure it out. On my 31st birthday, I was ensconced in Frankfurt, having given up that life for a new one.
I’m there once more, ready for something different. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve already done that, but I’m not about to throw one life away for another again. This time I’ll take the best of this life with me. This time I won’t box myself in with time limits. This time I will take my time. This time I’m a bit wiser. But let it be known that this time is now.
