La Entropista

I’m dancing again! Yay!

Okay by now if you have at all been interested you have seen the Flickr photos of our little das Parfum jaunt back to Germany. First of all I’d like to apologize to the folks that I mean to get together with but didn’t. This trip consisted mostly of dealing with jet lag, staying up all night at post-premiere parties, and sleeping through the day/plane flights/the actual movie. Next time, please.

The first night back in Munich we hit the team premiere party which was crowded and hot but totally great in part because we saw people we knew and cared about but also because I was tag-team hit on by a hungarian architect and his documentary director wingman, which was important and awesome because I have been feeling like a total cow lately and it was nice to be reminded that I am found desireable by other people besides my loving sweet potato who has basically admitted that no matter how fat I get he would still get a stiffy over me. Also there was good conversation about the World Trade Center/ Libeskind debacle which made me feel smart and opinionated, too. So, after tons of prosecco and choco-mousse parfaits, we headed to the doener stand across from Constantin to celebrate. Nothing like a pile of pommes with curried ketchup and a beer to round out a pretty fantastic night.

Then oh god, the real premiere: all red carpet and swishy socialites at the Mathaeser. Slept through the german version of the film then headed over to the Residenz for the party. Wanna know what the VIP area was like? It was like you have to stand around with snooty uptight Muenchen schikeria wondering what the hell you are doing there surrounded by no one you care about and all you want to do is get some air and sit down and have some food and a good stiff drink. Evening saved by another late night stop at a bar next to the hotel with a self-proclaimed wee Irish lass swapping divorce stories. Oh yeah, this is what being an adult is like. Right.

Berlin: thank god for Berlin. By this time we are exhausted. He had meetings all day, I was so tired I couldn’t make it across the street to see what was going on for Fall at the H & M. I was that tired. Slept through the english version of the movie then watched Eichinger (can I say not entirely sober?) give an endless speech and slober all over Tom and then proceeded to Borcharts for the after party. An excellent time as there was plenty to drink and people with glass eyes and girl-gossip and the inevitable drunk text messaging to various friends at four a.m. We were back at the hotel by six (shared a cab with the director of Goodbye Lenin and his wife- just as sweet and down to earth as the Muenchners are uppity a-holes) and in bed by seven. So as far as evenings in Berlin go, quite successful.

Then spent the next three days staring with slack-jawed wonderment at the insanity that is the boyfriend’s family in his bucolic little hometown, but that is a story for another post. Literally- open mouthed, big-eyed wtf happening there. In the end, it explained so much, but man, it’s hereditary? Lord Jesus.

I’m headed back to Germany tomorrow and it would be nice to see you. I’m in Munich on the 6th and 7th, Berlin on the 8th, and outside Frankfurt from the 9th to the 11th. I’m going because Perfume is premiering there and it would be good to be in a country where people- like it or not-  gave a shit about the novel and the film, because here in the US, ain’t nobody gonna care. I’ll have my handy with the charger and the sim card. If you owe me money, be prepared, I’m going to collect.

Local girl on the Isar. Ever see a lineup like that?

Tomorrow we are off to Los Cabos for two weeks. Granted, the temperature is predicted to hover around 100 degrees Farenheit but I’m hoping the beach, the pool and the constant flow of tequila-based beverages will help keep us cool. Of course we’ll be going to the hotel with the pirate ship in the swimming pool, which seems to impress me more than it does the children, but once they get there and find out that there is a hot tub on the deck, they’ll be full in.

While all of us will be headed south tomorrow, today my nether regions got a head start and went to Brazil. They’ve only gone there once before, in a traumatic vodka-soaked episode with a Persian aesthetician in Irvine, after which I showed up at the graduate computer lab drunk as a skunk, and later blabbed every inappropriate detail to those sitting around me in Land Use Law. This time I went to a nice tinkly music place in Santa Barbara where what looked like an eighteen year old girl was down there taking care of business while up above I had my Kelly Clarkson moments silently biting my lip and cursing my poor memory for pain. In the end it went a hell of a lot smoother than my first attempt at a home job that ended in me lying on the kitchen floor underneath the microwave with tears in my eyes knowing full well that I’d still have to do the other side. The last time this process was considered was with Maya in Berlin, when we rode past this place (which Bowleserised covered so nicely here) but I thought if I were to scream obscenities at the person torturing me, I’d really prefer her to understand fully what I was trying to communicate.

So then, I guess the point of all that is now there is one less bathing suit issue to contend with. Will promise to wear loads of sunscreen, eat dozens of lobster tacos, and try not sell the children to any migrant farm worker families in some random moment of weakness.

Hypochondriacal freakouts, as pleasurable as they might be, never seem to last long, and the last one passed in about two days (although to my credit it did seem to get worse as the days progressed, and then overnight, disappeared almost completely). So, none of you on the Left Coast are going to have to see me spotty or striped or in any other variation from the norm. 

 Yay! Girlfriends! Pretty much the norm. (from Maya’s flickr)

This turn of events left me with no excuse but to socialize. Outside my home. With other people. So yesterday I went to lunch with Rowain, who is typically very reserved in a formal Singaporean kind of way, but turned out to be hungry for female companionship, and almost immediately launched into some pretty personal talk. Lots in common, with us both involved with Germans with confusing exes, trying to negotiate this culture and the isolation that comes along with language barriers and lack of a social network outside of our Mann’s friends (not such an issue for me as I know I will return tout suite, but she’s here for the long haul). I was really touched by this attempt to connect and feel really sorry that I can be so terrible about my tendency to withdraw from the world for no particular reason.

We will be moving back to
California next week, and while I am looking forward to seeing friends (and the sun) again when I return, I am absolutely losing my shit over what must transpire when I get back. First, find housing. Then, little technicalities like getting a job (not career, mind you, a job like in how about some yard duty for money, and can I wash your car, too?), renewing my driver’s license, fighting with 24 Hour Fitness, and meeting the ex-wife. Oh, honeys, I am sooo looking forward to this moment in the falling-in-love-with-an-older-man saga. After all I have heard- and not just from disgruntled husband but from former mutual friends who have come clean with their real opinions about this person- I am so anxious that I am likely to have some sort of meltdown involving a little bit of barfing when it actually happens.

Will this blog turn into a ”can you believe what the ex-wife is trying to do this time?” blog? Not likely. While that might be entertaining in a melodramatic voyeuristic sort of way, I won’t succumb to that urge. No, not at all. Or maybe. What it may very well turn into is a “now what am I supposed to do with these two very small moving things he calls his sons and how do I prevent myself from becoming the evil-daddy’s girlfriend” blog. Sort of a mommy blog as viewed from the other side of the wormhole type thing. Ack. I don’t know how to do children. Yes, I babysat when I was a teen, but since then my interaction with kids has been limited to using my authority as a science teacher to announce that they should be careful not to jump too high- they may fly off the earth because it does spin awfully fast and gravity is just not that strong higher up there.

Someone once told me that my blog used to be good, even almost as good as dooce, and I had to agree. I used to be funnier when my life was in a bit of turmoil. This spate of happy months has rendered me quite a boring blogger indeed (I’m secure in my belief that yes, posting pictures of what I’m watching on TV is remarkably clever). If you are at all curious, I would encourage you to go through the archives of my first few months of blogging when I was a cold and hungry and sleep deprived grad student getting dumped all the time. It was hilarious! And heartwarming! And packed with life lessons! (And self-indulgent and just a bit masturbatory, but isn’t that what blogging is for anyway?)

So, we all get older, and life gets more complicated, and that’s what being an adult is all about. So there. Of course, I will attempt to hold my shit together and project a stoic maturity and strength of character so as not to be outwardly traumatized by forthcoming events, but on the inside my tummy will be doing flip-flops and I’m guessing that some of that neurotic angst-ridden craziness that is bound to be stewing in my little brains will seep into the writing here, lucky for you all.

P.S. There is an overabundance of alcohol here so if we decide to have a drink-our-cupboards-bare evening before we leave I’ll keep you posted.

About a week ago I started taking sulfa drugs in combination with other stuff to take care of some issues with my ladyparts which I won’t go into as that which I just wrote is already too far into the realm of Too Much Information. So, a few days ago I noticed that I had a little red spot on my side. It itched a little. No big deal. Last night I went to a housewarming party in Haidhausen (in which I made only one desperate call to the sweet potato to please come now, and hid in the bathroom just once) and there were so many people there I had to peel of layers and I was still sweating up a storm. I got very itchy where the perspiration made my camisole cling to my back, but I just chalked it up to scabies or lice or my hair just being very thick and heavy against my neck.

When I got home I peeled off my clothes to shower and noticed that my entire torso was covered in giant red welts all over. Hives! Everywhere! And irresistably itchy! I slept through the night, but must have been busy between REM cycles because I woke up covered in what looks like a slight sunburn, with scratchmarks and welts and broken blood vessels and other things in places that make me look like I didn’t charge enough for the weekly bondage session. I’m a complete mess, and I didn’t even get to enjoy any of it.

This morning I went to Web MD, where I self-diagnose all my Munchausenistic problems, and found that it’s going to take 7-14 days after I stopped my sulfa regimine for the allergic reaction to go away. Meanwhile, God, I’m beautiful!