"Buy me a Disaronno first."

Listenin' me to some Mahler--Symphony no. 8 in Eb major--also known as the Symphony of a Thousand (a name of which Mahler did not approve). This is like, sit in the audience and your ears will be bleeding as much as your eyes are crying. Bernstein looked like he was passing a kidney stone and experiencing fellatio at the same time when he conducted this one. My, that'd lead to a surprise ending for the fellatiator. ptooey.

Well, it seems I don't smell as badly as I thought I did. I went on a date. Yes, a real live date with a living, breathing Mann. No, I did not pay him and no, he was not a confused illegal alien with limited English capabilities who thought I was his ticket into the country. This one actually wanted to go on a date, to DINNER, with me. I was ecstatic.

Now, normally my sexual life is as follows:
1. Meet low-voiced human, establish masculinity. (Those who are high-voiced are not excluded, but they tend to be menstruators. No cervix for me, thank you.)

2. Man buys me a drink at Bull's. I sip my Midori sour, thinking that he doesn't look quite as much like Matt Damon as his Yenta girlfriend told me. In fact, he usually has one eye and just enough teeth so that he can eat without the aid of a food processor. Sometimes a puncture wound on his upper lip, sometimes a kind of herpes-excema around the mouth and inner elbow. It's a neat kind of lottery, really.

3. If Man can walk down the street without having children scream in terror (or poorly-dubbed Japanese musicians pointing and ruing the day when the atom was harnessed), then I usually end up going home with him or taking him home.

4. After a lengthy courtship of 2 hours (the time it takes to make me some coffee and get through the only-slightly-more-interesting-than-a-funeral discussion about his major) Man and I will ___________CENSORED___________. Depending on the Man, this can take up to 11.94 minutes. Usually, though, this step is quicker than Easy-Mac.

5. I put on my pants, and start walking home. When he insists on driving, I simply say, "Oh, that's ok, it's really nice outside and I didn't make it to the gym today." This means, "Oh, that's ok. I'd rather walk home so that I don't walk into my apartment smelling like one-eyed comp. lit. major with a thing for licking my knees."

6. After some tentative AIM back-and-forths, I'm back to concentrating on C.P.E. Bach. So long, Reginald (sometimes the names you make up are better than the names you didn't get.)


Alright, so this is a re-enactment, somewhat sensationalized for dramatic effect. But the subtext is still there: it's the rare boy who exhibits true character--intelligence, wit, humor, attractiveness, maturity, opinion, and a moral fiber no more dense than my own. I think I've found one of the rarest. I feel like calling the Discovery Channel.

Zach is a fantastic guy, one about whom I'm quickly becoming more and more excited. After dinner and then Chocolat, I'm ready to pursue this one with all my energy. With any luck, by this time next month, I won't be back at Bull's, warding off the pockèd penis pirates. I'll be on a couch on Fess Avenue, content to spend a Saturday evening lying with him, comfortable in the commitment.

I can't wait.


Currently listening to: Mahler 2--Resurrection. This one is aptly named. At the end, a big Jesus appears and smites the wicked and poorly-dressed. Just kidding. It's a small Jesus.

C is for cookie. Me no share.

Listening to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Your classic boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy has allegiances to royal uncle, royal uncle loves girl, jealousy and same-sex incest kinda story. Ok, maybe not the uncle. Wagner is so German that he embodies everything before and after him in German culture. He is at once beer steins and Habsburgs, Nazism and Humperdinck. Impossible to like the man, but I highly recommend the music. but not at sleepy-time. ok enough. I can't make this anti-semite funny, so I'll just quote Young Frankenstein.

"Why, he'd have an enourmous Staanstücher!" The incomparable Teri Garr.

Today was Carl smacks Carl in the face day. I just went crazy buck wil' with the faux pas. At one point, I turned on Bob Vila to see if he could give me tips on how to nail-gun my lips together. I suppose it's not surprising... I'm not the most candy-coated-gooey-center kinda guy. I'm those little generic brand-name suckers that can only say, "Your pediatrician is too cheap to get Tootsie-Roll Pops." I'm the old, stale Dots, the ones that you think might be pretty good, but ohp! they're vile and stick to your teeth. I don't try to be this way, but often people would much rather eat the nondescript, homemade Halloween candy from the Cat Lady down the street than break into a box of old, stale Dots.

So, les grands faux pas...

1. In theory, since there are 709476,09837465o97,26435097,63409586.1235 people in my class, they split it up into a lecture and a drill. The lecture is taught by a professor, a luminous and illustrious Yale PhD. When she writes tests, however, her syntax and diction can sometimes be confusing and misleading. (i.e. let's use a word that we've never heard before to write a test question). We have a test tomorrow, and in drill today I raised my hand and said, "Ok, so Gretchen words things kinda strangely... anything we should know how to translate into Normal ahead of time?" I got some polite chuckles and agreement-nods, and the instructor answered my question. I immediately felt guilty for using the professor's first name, so I added, "And I apologize. I should call her Professor **** [names omitted as a result of my pussiness]."

The drill instructor narrowed his eyes and curtly replied, "Yes, you should."

So I came out of that one smelling like a rose. A rose in an anal sphincter.


2. My German teacher was late to class today. After ten minutes past the official starting time, some classmates and I decided our time would be better spent napping and watching DOL and OLTL, classic noon tv favorites. The party of miscreants includes: myself, two other Californians (I thought it was very Berkeley of us to walk out. The girl didn't have a big enough bra to burn, though. oh well.), and a Ms. S. Kim, of Seoul, South Korea. The other Cali people exited the room and went to the left. Ms. Kim and I went to the right, and the boba-binger decided it would be best if we waited for the elevator.

"But the teacher will soon arrive and see us escaping!" said I.
"He will not!" quoth she.
"Whatever, Margaret Cho," I retorted.

So we took the elevator, and of course at the bottom was our teacher. grand. He's about 25-26, balding, and from Provo... so this very sweet man looked at us, obviously having been running, and said, "Oh wow, guys I'm so sorry, has everyone already left?" Well, shitcrumpets. "Some people," I said. "Oh," he replied, "well, I guess I'll run up there and teach whoever is still there."
At this point I had myriad options:

a) I could say, "Yeah, you have fun with that," at which point Ms. Kim and I would have left. But it would've been faster to just grab his head and press his lips to my ass.

b) We could pretend that we didn't recognize him, and still leave. The next day, say, "Wow, that was you?! You look so different outside the classroom." No.

c) Running.

but we chose:

d) Enjoy a 10-second awkward moment while the teacher realizes that we obviously don't care enough about his class to wait 15 minutes, then we say, "Oh, well, now that you're here, of course we'll stay," and proceed to follow the man up three flights of stairs in silence, all the while looking like two bad seeds being escorted to the principal's office. Also included in this option is arriving back in the class that we had so flamboyantly left 3 minutes earlier, following the teacher and having the class give out a long, "Ooooooooooo" (read: you're in trouble sound).


3. A delightful-looking violinist had laid out some cookies in a densely populated common area, hoping to attract students to her and her chatter about the Music School Student Organization. I, in my hunger, approached her and decided not to waste time. "Is taking a flyer all I have to do to get a cookie?" I asked, cookie in hand and smiling ever so deliciously, proud of my sarcastic cuteness.

She was not amused. "No," she said plainly, grabbing the cookie from my hand, just inches from my open mouth, and putting it back in the box. Turning to another interested student, she said, "Hi, you want to join MSSO?..." It was clear that I was now finished at the dinner table.


Ok, so maybe those weren't all textbook faux pas... maybe more of me just being rude and not realizing it. But I felt mighty ashamèd all day. I went and found a dark corner of my apartment to sit in, so I could think about what I'd done. I also said an act of contrition and went to confession. By that I mean I came home and watched Oprah with Kate.

You know when you were little, and the most mortifying thing in the whole world was being scolded by an adult you didn't know? Yeah, I felt like that.

So, I resolve to have more class and be conscious of my words and actions from now on. Not everyone warms to me immediately, especially, it seems, when I try to take their confectionary delights without asking. In the meantime, I'll practice using my wheelchair. Both feet are in my mouth, so I need some way to get around.

Music RIGHT NOW: Louis Prima, I ain't got nobody. He became famous as the voice of King Louis in Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book. At least that's how he became famous to me. When I was five. He scats like a good red-blooded Guido, and so I'm turned on. Excuse me.

What do you today night?

Musique: Philip Glass, The Hours Soundtrack. Fantastic soundtrack for an unbelievable movie. Phil's usually kinda weird, but this one's pretty mainstream-sounding. He's written some unusual stuff, most notably 1998's Koyaanisqatsi, which is the homo word for vagina.

So, I'm a little worried that mayhaps my limited German experience will not prepare me for my trip to Austria in the Fall. I can't imagine trying to impress a random Helmut or Kurt at the local Disko. Stefan won't be amazed by my being able to explain that my jeans are blue, and Hansel won't melt when I tell him that Frau Schulz has two dogs.

"I don't like to hike in the mountains," I'll say. "But I want the Bratwurst and, granted, my arm is long."

Plurals make it fun too. In german, you don't just add an s. Nein Herr. A plural requires some umlauts and random letters that ancient saxons thought were kühl. Or sometimes it's the same. Or sometimes it's just an umlaut, no random letters. Or sometimes I chew the spine of my book in a bitter rage. Watch and be puzzled.
die Mutter=the mother. fine. gotcha.
die Mütter=the mothers. Was der fuck?
das Buch=the book.
die Bücher= the books.
der Arm=the arm
die Arme=the arms.

German efficiency my ass.

So I'm more than merely worried about a first date in Vienna. I'm frightened.
"This foods is deliciouses. Whence come the chef assembling my stomach-fillers?"

or later that evening: "Good night, Michael. Yours eye are like bog of lit. Please, me kiss with your tongues."


Intriguing too are the compound words. Some of the gems are:
der Tageslichtprojektor=the projector (lit. day's light projector)
die Fahrkartenschalter = the ticket window
die Erziehungswissenschafte = education (as an academic subject)

German also puts words together that in English don't seem to jive. Translations end up being, well, loose.
Kindertotenlieder, or, Songs on the Death of Children. Not a Bradybunchy language, German.
das Seeleleben, or, soul-life. Poetic, yes. Difficult to ease that one in though.

"You're a great dancer. Soul-life!"

Could be fun to play with, I guess. die Erziehungswissenschaftetotenlieder, or, Songs on the Death of Education (as an academic subject).

Lastly, the seperable prefix verbs. These are quite like reflexive verbs in the romance languages. But not. A simple example:
stehen = to stand
aufstehen= to stand up, to wake up
Straightforward enough, I think. Until you try to make a sentence.
"Ich stehe am 8 Uhr auf." "I wake at 8 o'clock up."

That could pose problems when I try to get sassy with my new Mann, Jens. It might ruin the moment if I say:

"You make stand my penis up."
"Let's go homes and sex in every room have. We can clean later the mess up."

In reality, I do love German. It's a very direct and yet surprisingly poetic language. I'm just a little afraid that if I don't learn more, I'll have to rely on a kommst du hier stare. And I look like I'm getting a colonic when I make that face.

Ich höre Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave. I felt rully smart today when I mentioned I thought it was such a moving piece, and it certainly evokes the hardships of a slave. It's about Slavs, Carl. Not slaves. Ich bin ein Stupidevalleygirlin.