Things I have been up to lately
Had dinner with my friend Paul at Zen Palate and Hallo Berlin, saw the musical Hairspray, planted flowers in pots on my fire escape, just like I always wanted, made calls from a pay phone, drank my fair share of Shirley T's at the bar around the corner, fell in love with my neighborhood, committed myself to picking up some french before I go to Paris with Bryan in November, remembered to ask Matt when he gets back from Costa Rica if he still wants to go to Iceland in the spring, went to the Neue Galerie and started saving up for two books in the bookstore, Weimar Culture and a book on my favorite design philosophy, De Stijl, discussed poetry, feng shui, and overwatering plants over tea in the museum's own Cafe Sabarsky with said friend Paul, wandered around aimlessly, thought about quitting my job but then realized that there is nowhere that I'd rather be and nothing I'd rather be doing in a strange epiphany I had while waiting for a meeting to start, brushed up on my Russian, made a serious effort to track down the previous tenant so that I can forward him his mail, made plans to get Ethiopian food and beers in two different cities with two sets of friends, wrote letters instead of email, missed lots of people I don't see everyday, wished I had a cat but can't, wished I had my dog even more, walked by my two favorite gardens: one in a church with a white stone statue of Mary with her arms outstretched and lots of tall leafy plants and another little terrace with an old bathtub converted into a fountain that I realized today is home to several koi, wished that I could fit a bathtub on my fire escape and that it was a practical idea, read a book on Man Ray, one on Georgia O'Keefe (thank you Bryan for both) and a book of poetry by James Laughlin, who is quite good, got optimistic and realized that despite the ups and downs (mostly downs lately), my life is right where I want it to be.
