Speaking of Radiohead ...

While we're on the subject of Radiohead (sorry, this new album has brought back all my teenage fanboyism with a mighty vengeance), let's enjoy this face-melting tribute from the Pride of Arizona.

I want to kiss whoever is responsible for this.



JEM

Rock 'n' Roll sticks it to the collective man

Have we all gone to www.inrainbows.com and downloaded Radiohead's gorgeous new album "In Rainbows"? You have no excuse not to since it's basically free. The band created it without any record company support and are offering it online for whatever people want to pay for it. (Just a note: If you don't pay anything, Radiohead fans will probably hunt you down and beat you up. Fortunately for you, they're usually pretty scrawny. But they fight dirty. So just be on guard.) It's very mellow and ethereal and (I think) the most intimate and emotional thing Radiohead have produced in a decade. I can't stop listening to it. But mostly I love that they made every record company in the world simultaneously mess their pants by proving that the suits that have gotten fat off recorded music since its infancy are now obsolete. Eat that, suckas.

Beautiful German men

I think that seeing beautiful people anywhere you are in the world is a rare thing. I'm, of course, not talking about cute, pretty, or attractive people. There are plenty of those. I'm talking about the sort of beauty that makes you lose all your train of thought and gape with no regard for what you must look like. The kind of statuesque beauty that should be displayed in a museum rather than walking around with the rest of us mortals. However, on those rare occasions that I saw a person fitting this description in America, it was usually a woman, although there were occasional men. Here it has been exclusively men. I don't want to give anyone the impression that all the men here are Nordic gods. Germany certainly has its share of ogres. But when the right genes come together in a German male, it's pretty spectacular. Today Jake and I were riding the straßenbahn across town, and this guy, probably in his early 20s, gets on and sits next to us. And my husband, who has a flawless record as a strictly heterosexual male, leans over to me and whispers, "He is BEAUTIFUL." And he was. Tall, slender, shoulder-length wavy hair, a perfect angel face and pale blue eyes. It was all either of us could do to keep from staring at him. I told Jake he was probably a vampire. (Just finished "Eclipse"! w00t w00t!)



JEM

Pro 1: Carbs

I love carbs. They're pretty much all I eat. And, fortunately for me, Germans love carbs, too. You can find a bakery every 10 feet with delicious breads and pastries (my favorite is the streuselschnecke, the streusel snail). These pics are from the autumn bread market here early last month. My little guy was called an Ofenmäuschen, or little oven mouse. His ears were a little wonky, but that's OK. I ate them off.

Was machst du?

Yikes! Sorry for not posting in so long.

Today I would like to address the question I am asked most frequently. Well, maybe not most frequently, that would probably be "Are you homesick?", but it is the question that I prefer most to avoid.

In German the question is: "Was machst du hier in Dresden?"

In English it is: "What do you do here in Dresden?"

I don't have a job. I submitted a resumé to a language teaching bureau seeking native English speakers to teach business and advanced English, but never heard back. And I don't go to school. I would love to take one of the immersion German courses at the Goethe Institute here, but they're pretty pricey, and we're pretty poor. So, that answers the first two questions that automatically follow the initial question if I ask for clarification. Work? No. School? No. I also don't have any children, so the plot thickens. How does a person pass nine to 10 hours every weekday all alone in a foreign country with no pressing responsibilities?

Here is how I do it (ideally): Get up, eat breakfast, exercise, bathe and get ready. Do general housework stuff for a while. Study German for two hours. Eat lunch. Run errands (mostly grocery shopping). Then spend the rest of the afternoon working on my novel, which will make us millions so that I can take that German course and Jake can buy computer parts. My goal is 1,000 words a day, and I currently have almost 70 pages.

However, some days are better than others. Here's what happened today: Get up, eat breakfast, exercise, bathe and get ready. Throw in laundry. Study German for one hour. Fall asleep on the couch. Wake up one hour later, deliriously. Make a sandwich and eat it whilst watching "America's Next Top Model" on YouTube. Knit and watch more "America's Next Top Model" on YouTube. Get disgusted with myself. Take out garbage. Take bus to the bank to withdraw week's grocery moolah. Go to the grocery store. Buy milk. Come home. Listen to geeky sci-fi podcast "Escape Pod" (short story about one man's romance with a robot) while I sweep the house and do the dishes. Write in blog. Hate myself for not writing in my novel. End.

Do you think that's what I should tell people?

Cheese!

Code name: Street Dog; Known accomplice: Curly McGee

So, we had to get our "pass" pictures taken. These are the photos that go on our ausländer (foreigner) documents that the feds keep on us. The fact alone that government will be keeping a picture of me made me feel a little bit like an international spy, but the funniest part about the procedure is the many, many rules dealing with these photos. They are very strict about the background, the lighting, the size of the face in the picture, and details like wearing hats or anything else that could potentially obscure your identity, I suppose. The strangest rule? You can't smile. Well, you can have a vaguely pleasant expression, but you can't show teeth or wrinkle your face up too much. Which is why we look like communists.

Oh, and I dyed my hair. I'm guessing this is roughly my natural color. I've always been sort of morally opposed to my natural dishwater blond, or as they call it here, "street dog blond," but it's growing on me. Get it? It's GROWING ON ME? Omigosh. I kill me.

You are now entering the Twilight Zone ...

Yes, that is a USA aisle at the international foods store here. I couldn't stop smiling when I bumped into it the other day. I often wonder what it actually means to be "American," culturally, to an outsider. What is our bratwurst and sauerkraut? Our tea and crumpets? I can't say I can argue with the store's picks: Pop Tarts, Orville Redenbacher's microwave popcorn, yellow mustard, relish, marshmallows, peanut butter, maple syrup, barbecue sauce, Betty Crocker cake mixes. I think that's why it made me smile so much — they were dead on. Everything reminded me of home. It all seemed so normal and ordinary, and seeing it in this context, as a "foreign food," all at once made me feel very far away. Like light years.

Another interesting thing here: Take a look at the prices on these things. Taking into account that $100 equals about 70 Euros, that would make this Betty Crocker brownie mix roughly $7 or $8. But the Pam really blew me away — almost 7 Euros, nearly $10! For Pam Cooking Spray?! Where are we? Mars?



JEM