Berlin or bust

And again...

Primary Berlin again...

Primary Berlin never ends...

Berlin = tagger's paradise

(Not so) haute wedding couture on Chausseestrasse

The moon over the Spree Canal Thursday night...

Primary Berlin continued...

M10 Streetcar, on my way to the vet with Leopold.

They really do use Legos to build their houses here. 

Parked outside LPG, Berlin's biggest organic market, where Prenzlauer Berg's bio-mamis go wild.

Primary Berlin

My dear friend Rosemary began a photo series called Primary New York: Manhattan in reds, yellows, and blues. Here's my effort from across the pond. (Try it, wherever you are! You'll start seeing your entire world in three satisfying shades.)

 

Berlin = one big love-jungle dumpster

 

Corner of Brunnen & Bernauer Strassen

Best shorts in Berlin, Schoenhauser Allee Ubahn platform

Back of his motorcycle

Back of his motorcycle, two in the a.m., hold tight! and 

FLY. Berlin barren, alight: Reichstag Brandenburger Tiergarten: 

our very own. And Wannsee! air tinged by earth tree lake, sky 

starred dark. A deer sprints. And. Hope leaps. 

Popping the Question in NYC: 22 Brilliant Ideas

Let's be clear: No one is proposing to me. No one is even thinking about it. These days I'm happy if I get a "(maybe) I'll call you (one of these days) and we'll go out for coffee (if I don't forget you the minute I walk away) so what's your number (and by the way, even if I do call, I won't be paying for your coffee, since this is Germany where chivalry got trampled to death by feminism thirty years past)." 

Dude. What happened to post-feminism? 

Regardless. 

A friend of a friend of mine is taking his girlfriend to New York City in December. It's their first time. And he wants to propose while there. My friend asked me for proposal spots and hotels.

Being entirely devoid of ideas, I polled my New York Facebook friends, and came up with this list (categorization, commentary, and linkage befitting a non-New Yorker). It will surely prompt you to think of spots far more funky, mouth-watering, stunning... Comment fields await your brilliance below. 

Proposals With a View

• Rooftop of Metropolitan Museum (cold, but amazing view of Central Park)
• Brooklyn Promenade (also cold, but romantic Manhattan skyline)
• River Cafe in Brooklyn (overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline)
• Staten Island Ferry—with whiskey in a flask (I love this ferry! It’s free, crowded with commuters, has great view of Statue of Liberty and tip of Manhattan)

Creativity Rules the Day

• On Santa's lap at Macy's (at 34th Street, Herald Square)
• The elevator at the Marriot Marquis on Times Square (start at the top--it plummets!)
• Roosevelt Island Tramway, from 59th to Roosevelt Island (similar vertigo situation)
• In front of your favorite work of art at the Met or MOMA
• Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Tropical Pavilion

Pop the Question While Her Mouth's Full

• Zenkichi (Japanese, on N. 6th Street in Williamsburg, Very romantic: private booths)
• Grimaldi's Pizzeria (in DUMBO, true Italian-Brooklyn ambience--the whole room will cheer!)
• Oak Room Bar (just reopened, like a grand old British Officer's Club)

Old Classics

• Rockefeller Center Skating Rink
• Horse-Drawn Carriage Ride
• Bethesda Castle
• Belvedere Castle

Maybe a Little Touristy, But...

• Top of a Double Decker bus (try a nighttime tour!)
• Circle Line Cruise (takes you all the way around Manhattan)
• Top of the Rock (at Rockefeller Center--better than Empire State Building)
• The View restaurant (revolving restaurant, top of Marriott at Times Square)

Total All-in-One Awesome Idea

Stay at the Junior Suite at Ritz Carlton in Battery Park with the views of the Statue of Liberty. Charter a yacht from Battery Park for a 2-3 hour sunset cruise, with the dinner on board. Propose there. Get a small boat so only the two of you and the crew is there.

Recommended Hotels

• If you're rollin' it: The Peninsula Hotel (very expensive, but supposedly AWESOME)
• Won't quite break the bank: The Library Hotel (across from public library)
• Living on a shoestring: Gershwin Hotel (totally funky and cool) 

Childless parenting expert strikes again!

I sort of kind of pretty much had a nervous breakdown while writing the first article. Hmm. Wonder why?

Choosing Single Motherhood

"If you haven't already bumped into her on the playground, you know somebody who knows somebody who knows her. She's unmarried, probably a professional woman, with a post-graduate degree—financially stable, if not successful. She's been watching her age creep upward, acutely aware that her fertility drops after 35. The day comes when—no suitable suitor on the horizon, let alone in the bedroom—she makes the fateful decision: She's not going to wait for Mr. Right any longer...."

Raising a Child With Special Needs

"Whether you're confronted with autism or cerebral palsy, dyslexia or ADHD, as the parent of a special-needs child you cope with a set of challenges other parents do not know. The daily demands can tax everything from your finances to your own health. But no matter where you are in the process—seeking a diagnosis or five years down the line—you can find sanity amid the stresses, and even rewards you might never have imagined...."

Winter comes to Ryke Strasse

My friendly neighborhood Schneemann. Before he drove away.

Parenting expert fesses up: "I'm childless!"

Parents everywhere dazed and disillusioned by the news. However, publisher WeTV.com refuses to back down, issuing the following statement: "This Berliner chick knows whereof she speaks." 

Controversial articles include:

How to Talk to Your Kids About the Recession

Plummeting stocks! Billion-dollar bailouts! Bankruptcies! Foreclosures! Times like these, real life seems to extend its pointy finger, and—pop!—there goes the bubble of safety in which we thought our families lived. It’s tough, as parents, to know how, or whether, to address the topic bla bla bla...

Birth Order and Personality

Consider the world the eldest child is born into: Mom and Dad are first-timers, with all the anxiety and excitement that entails. Every milestone is breathlessly awaited (if not coaxed along) and loudly heralded (if not captured on film). This is both blessing and curse bla bla bla...

Handling Holiday Stress: Tips for Parents

Ah, the holiday season! Stockings hung by the chimney with care, visions of sugar-plums, Prancer and Vixen, children nestled snug in their beds… Okay, let’s be real: To-do lists scrolling madly through your mind, visions of credit card debt and frantic social events, children kicking and screaming in Toys-R-Us aisles bla bla bla… 

"Groundbreaking work!" raves the Times' Michiko Kakutani. "Better than a blog post!" 

Um. Whatever.

I have lost the blogging bug

There's plenty to say. A Madonna reading in Munich. A hankering for Dirndls. A plan for Paris.

And yet. Mum's the word here in Prenzl' Berg.

Besides, I'm trying to earn some money. Editing. Journalism-ing. That kind of thing. 

Blog's gotta wait. 

Also I'm thinking, shouldn't someone be PAYING me for all the hours I spend painstakingly coaxing words into submission for each day's post?

Ain't going to happen. Thus a personal boycott of this non-compensatory activity.

Sorry, folks. 

Very Quiet Blog

Very quiet blogger. 

I appear to be indulging in a 14-day jet-lag induced hibernation. And: Reading the Golden Compass voraciously (in German!). Also: Showing multiple, overlapping out-of-towner around Berlin. Not to mention: Scrounging up freelance work for the months to come.

In addition, there's: Bidding adieu to my Croatian literary hot stuff friend, who's zooming off to Siberia for three long weeks (yes, that Siberia). And: Grudgingly removing all flimsy summer dresses from the closet, to be replaced by dark and sturdy winter gear (Brrrrlin). Plus: Getting way too addicted to the time-suck that is Facebook. 

There was also: A haircut. A manicure. A brief shopping spree. 

Oh, and did I mention? I met with the Ex. On a Friday. In the cold. Mauer Park, deserted, by the stone steps.

I was wearing my new, knee-high Frye boots. The dagger fit perfectly. 

My Croatian literary hot-stuff friend showed up later. With the shovel.

We buried his blue Nike jacket and plaid Yankees cap too. Lest any traces be left behind.

That's why she's off to Siberia. And me, to Munich. First flight tomorrow.

If anyone asks, it's: Bayreuth Boy who? 

I dedicate this song to my mom

and to my aunt in tutzing

and to me too (if that's allowed)

and to anyone else who feels like it fits.

it's yours. 

Anthem

thank you leonard. 

I am in San Francisco

Living through stuff that doesn't get to be blogged. 

But the sky is blue. And the sushi is exquisite. And my new MacBook is the best thing that ever happened to me. Black as gunpowder. Masculine as Brut cologne. And so-damn-sexy. 

Which is good. Because for now, my fingers on this keyboard is all the lovin' I'll be gettin'.

The longer I don't see him...

The fuzzier he grows. A figment of my imagination. A dream I once had. Or a dream once had by a girl who used to be me.

Maybe that's for the best.

Or maybe it makes those moments when I'm told of him (he talks! he breathes! he rides in cars with boys!) all the more jarring. His very existence an affront.

Maybe I don't want him fuzzy. Maybe there's (strange) comfort in blood-raw pain. As if what we had did matter.

And that's the urge to see him.

Then again, I'm not so very brave. That I'd walk straight into flame.

Nor so foolhardy.

Today is two months. At this very hour.

Monday night he came to me, in my sleep. His pale face, his Nike jacket midnight blue. He was beside me, he was with me. He had returned.

I looked at him. His somber eyes. "But..." I shook my head. "I don't want to be with you."

Not angry. Just rooted.

I woke, surprised. Because I rarely lie. And never in my dreams.

ohmygodialmostforgot

Madonna turned 50 yesterday!!!!!

And there I was frittering away the hours with a blog about the Caucuses. Where are my priorities?

Last night, a string of videos: The whip of her body, lavender lycra. Jeans riding low, American flag. Her duet with Justin Timberlake, beige rouched bodice.

Say what you will: She is an empty vessel, a half-talented chameleon of pop ephemera, more materlialist than feminist. But: I was enchanted.

Besides, I owe the Divine Miss M a lot. And I will be honoring her with a reading of my very own prose in (god help me don't let me garble the umlauts or the rolling r's) German on Friday night.

Completely unrelated: Happy Birthday tomorrow to the other formidable Leo in my life. You know who you are.

Tough to feel sorry for yourself

When you see the footage of Georgians on your TV Saturday.

Tough to hold the channel steady for: refugee camps, Russian tanks, child corpses in charred autos.

When you could be watching: Sea of Love. Late-night talk show. A Jamaican in green and yellow run as if immortal.

But you do. Sit through. Until you are sick inside. And grateful.

Still. You wake into your own life. Pissy. Insomnia-addled. The chills roll in, first time in a week. The news from San Francisco weighs heavy. An (insane) urge (MUST see the Ex!) accompanies you all over. Mean as a migraine.

Georgia? Very far away.

Afternoon, window table, Sowohlalsauch, the waiter with the astounding brows. You haven't seen him for a while now.

You nurse your cappuccino. He brings you the check. He leans in, shy, respectful. I was wondering, he says, German spiced with an accent you can't unpuzzle, May I take a photo some day, you sitting at this table, black and white, that is what I do, my art, I want to capture images, of people here not German...

You smile. Try to hide your titillation. An honor, you say. And then: Can I ask you where you're from? (Spain, you've decided. The homeland so often attributed to you of late. Go figure.)

Georgia, he says, and No! you say, Your family!? Are they okay?

Yes, he says. His eyes are torn with fear and question. His eyebrows knotted, restive.

I wanted to go to them, he says, My father told me no, my friends told me stay. Oh, but I am ripped up inside. I couldn't come to work all week.

I am so sorry, you say. It must be awful.

I haven't watched the news since Friday, he says. I had to turn it off.

That is good, you say. That is better.

He lays down a Euro change. You slide it toward him. Oh, he says, thanks. 'Cause one's a lot on a four-Euro bill.

Still. You both know: a Euro means nothing. Not now, on this day when the sun laces in and out of Berlin cloud.

In Georgia a woman keens. That was her child in the auto.

Unsteady earth, indeed.

I take it back

About needing to see the Ex.

Yesterday someone told me of an encounter with him. What he said. How he said it.

Her report was a red-hot branding iron, pressed against my sternum.

I wept, off and on. For hours.

How can I possibly see him. Without bursting into flame?

One Year in Berlin

Today. At 9:40 a.m. Exactly.

Now is your chance (while you're here, putting off work you know needs doing) to:

Relive the early hours! The first impressions! And the second!

Reacqaint yourself with Vincenzo! The (horror) flat in Friedrichshain! The incomparable Adam!

Don't forget: Vagina Jones! The girl with the Clothing Paradise! And the Best Soup in Berlin (without question)!

Wow, so many days, so many words. To think they almost didn't let me into the country.

Berlin and bust

The blog's just begging for a conjunction change. Dontchya think?