Orlando

Reading Orlando puts me in a romantic frame of mind. Virginia Woolf’s manner of speaking tends to leak into my words so please excuse anything that sounds weepy. Incidentally, Orlando is brilliant and reading it makes me want to become a Virginia Woolf scholar. Which is funny because it’s the first novel of Woolf’s that I’ve enjoyed, though I thought both A Room of One’s Own and even more so, Three Guineas, were two of the most incredible books ever written. If you have no interest in Orlando or Virginia Woolf or photography, skip ahead to paragraph two, because though I have something funny to tell you about getting a job, I have to divert my attention for one moment to Orlando, to mention the following: Did you realize there are pictures? I mean, Virginia Woolf’s inclusion of photography and portrait paintings is fascinating to me because I have been doing so much thinking about the inclusion of photographs with a text … realizing that writing for me necessarily demands some other form of media, whether it be photography or performance and … also, been thinking about the “author” as disembodied and what happens when we disallow the disembodiment, as in, what I was attempting in the first version of my ms “Goodmorning, Senor Alfabus” where I included photographs of myself … and now that I think about it, in my work in Nicaragua I included a photographic aspect of what I was doing, along with the poem take your pictures with you…I mean to say that the inclusion of photographs is a deliberate destruction—a deliberate transgression, or a pointing out of the power dynamic that exists when one presents the body, and as in Nicaragua, the power dynamic between the photographer and the photographed … which was obvious enough in Nicaragua, the “researcher” and the “researched,” the problems with this idea in the first place, the problem with women researching each other—what does this mean? But then less obviously when the photographer and photographed and author are one and the same … These are the kinds of questions that swim around in my brain. In part the reason why it was important to include photographs of myself, my body, as opposed to any other body when writing about my body. This was not a theoretical body that would stand in place, as symbol. To get entirely tangential, or not at all, depending on how you look at it, this is why I’m putting together this photography project that I mentioned earlier—the idea of the researcher who researches, and exposes, sometimes literally, her subject, the “researched,” and the researcher who remains, in effect, unexposed. What is the value of the body in being exposed or unexposed? What does one risk in exposure and why? How has the value or devalue of the body, as sexualized, become, in some way, artificially inflated? I keep free-writing on this subject, I think I’ve written pages upon pages, trying to come to some kind of conclusion about the value of the body as exposed or unexposed and I keep thinking what is the third thing—how did Edie once put it?--the resolution, the thing that transgresses both, both exposed and unexposed … I mean, what renders the body neither exposed nor unexposed, neither valuable nor valueless? In any case, it is questions like this that brought me to notice Virginia Woolf’s inclusion of photographs and paintings in her book Orlando. I wonder what fueled her choice to put image to this “tender subject” (as she puts it) of a person living as one sex and then another. It clearly adds to the parody of the fake biography. And yet, ironically, she points out in the text that she writes specifically for readers who have no need of photographs: “For though these are not matters on which a biographer can profitably enlarge it is plain enough to those who have done a reader’s part in making up from bare hints dropped here and there the whole boundary and circumference of a living person; can hear in what we only whisper a living voice; can see, often when we say nothing about it, exactly what he looked like; know without a word to guide them precisely what he thought—and it is for readers such as these that we write—” (43). And who are these paintings and photographs of in reality? I’m sure one of you out there knows the answer to this, perhaps everyone knows and I am in ignorance of these basic Virginia Woolf facts, so please enlighten me.

Berlin at 7 am is beautiful. Coming back to my apartment in the dawn light was—I was—in a state of euphoria, what with the stress I had placed on my body, and I came up the hill slowly, my bike squeaking (the bottom bracket is loose, I don’t know why, I’m hoping it has to do with the amount I’ve been riding it and not because of the slight crash I got into with a parked car—another matter entirely, read on …) In any case, I made it up the hill slowly all the while listing to my ipod, I forgot to mention earlier that this is a significant feature in my life, I mean, an ipod full of songs in English places a different kind of significance on walking down the street in germany. Perhaps I should have left it behind, then again, its kind of beautiful, its appropriation, right? It creates the strange soundtrack to berlin life. Incidentally, I am on the U-Bahn just now—the seats are heated on the u-bahn—pleasant when its cold, unpleasant at the moment because it is remarkably warm outside, I ordered coal and a big hairy guy with an indecipherably thick berlin accent delivered it to my cellar and I haven’t needed to use it yet, which is good because my roommate still hasn’t shown up and he’s the only one of the two of us who really knows how to properly light a coal furnace. So, I am overdressed today, which is a good feeling. Warm the last three days, after the rain, which made it unfortunate that I had the flu and was confined to my little room.

This morning 7 am I got back to my apartment and noticed, for the first time really noticed, the two birch trees by the U-Bahn tracks that run at the side of my apartment complex, and a green soccer ball stuck on the tracks, the gold leaves on the birch, the houses on the other side of the tracks. I have an existential moment looking across the tracks through the chain-link fence. They do seem to serve as a divide because, I forgot to mention, at the end of my street is, oddly, a climbing wall, like one that you’d find at REI or whatever, but this one is just there, jutting out from seemingly no where, no sports complex, no REI, just there. And I’ve seen people climbing on it. Then, beyond that, as though that were the last reminder of civilization, or familiarity, and odd familiarity at that, there is this complete no man’s land. Like you look out and you see gray pedestrian bridges crossing the u-bahn tracks and beyond you say something like, ah … that’s the rest of east germany. So there it is.

I saw berlin at 7 am for the first time today. Now I’ll get to why, which is that I got called last night from wolfgang, the owner of white trash—I had asked him previously for a job and he said he had none for me. But he called me last night and said, can you come in at 9 (pm)? It was Saturday night and I was about to go somewhere else—to Wigstöckel at SO36—but I knew I would be stupid not to go and work so I said yes. So I showed up to work as a fill-in waitress at White Trash. They gave me my own section, it was Saturday night, gave me a white frilly apron, ala “white trash”—but these were new aprons, I was the only person sporting one and man it looked ridiculous, that is to say, ridiculously fabulous. The place was packed—packed until 5 am. What I didn’t realize was that my waitressing shift would be from 9pm to 7 am. Hah!

Luckily the place doesn’t have any clocks and I needed the money so I was in the perfect position to be exploited—I agreed, somewhat unwittingly, to take the “late shift”, that means to stay until the very end, and since they don’t kick anyone out, there are still people buying drinks at 6:30 in the morning. I served burgers and fries and soup and salad—yes, the question soup or salad with that, its included, lives on—until 3 am, was it? Or four? Then only fries until 5 am perhaps? Then the last two hours while the real troopers were still pulling themselves through the night. It was, needless to say, hilarious, fun, frustrating, embarrassing, horrible, lovely, all of these. I was a total dunce at the money—all the coins are the same color and I had to add up tabs in my head and then make change on the spot—that was funny. And of course that whole thing about speaking german. Well luckily I work in a place that people sort of expect to speak some English, so I kind of worked it half and half. I did understand what people said to me, but its hard to unlearn those waitressing things I say all the time in English, like how ya’ll doin’? what can I getcha? Ev’thing ok? I don’t know, maybe this Americana adds to the charm of the place, I tend to think so. In any case we walked with “good tips,” that is, by berlin standards—I got 34 Euros for the entire night, in tips. On the other hand, wolfgang paid me 10 Euros an hour—cash, right on the spot, at 7 am, for a ten hour shift. So I wasn’t exactly complaining; I paid my rent in one night and then some. Or, I paid for half a ton of coal (125 Euros), depending on how you look at it. He did so (Wolfgang paid me) saying that he normally pays people 7 euros an hour when they start out, but he was paying me the same as everyone else because I was “clearly a professional,” at which I felt this odd combination of pride and depression … being a professional waitress, and yet he was right, that those years of waitressing really did seem to cross over into this particular busy Saturday night and I survived.

It is interesting how quickly our realities become shaped by the simplest routine… As I was telling sami … I find myself choosing little routines, as a way of managing such unfamiliar territory, I guess. I think this is what we naturally do when we feel chaos or unfamiliar, we create systems to make order and sense. Even if they are not particularly orderly. But it is strange, I find myself taking a shower everyday here, even though at home in San Francisco sometimes I was just so chaotic and running around that I just wouldn’t feel like I had time for even a shower. And here, I take a shower every day and run the water in the exact same way, cause I don’t have much hot water and I can’t waste it. And I use the same towel, hung on the same hook. And I only wash my hair one day a week—and its not random, it’s Thursday. And I make coffee for myself in the morning, with the exact same spoon and I measure out 6 scoops into a brown filter in a brown cone, and I run the water in the pan while I’m counting the scoops, because the water is very very low pressure, so you have to do other things whilst waiting for it to run into the pan. I do not have a kettle, it’s just a pan. Then I light a match—first, light the match—then, I turn on the gas on the stove and light the gas, making sure that the match doesn’t go out. Then, while the water is heating, I take the milk out of the fridge and take the sugar bowl and set it on the table, which I’ve covered with a china blue saucer, and I rest the spoon on top of the saucer, so I know which spoon is the coffee spoon and I won’t have to wash it everyday—because, its important to save water, and doing dishes takes so much time since the water runs slow and thin and its cold, besides. There’s no hot water in the kitchen faucet. Then I cut bread and put it on a large china blue plate and I put cheese and jam on the table, sometimes also a piece of ham. Then my water is boiled and I pour it through the cone and the filter and into the glass pitcher—there is no other suitable container or pitcher. Then I pour my coffee, throw the filter and coffee grounds in the compost bucket, sit down. I sit down at the kitchen table—this alone is miraculous and unusual for me. Then I eat and drink and continue to listen to the BBC. When I’m done, which isn’t very much time later since I’m a compulsively fast eater, I wash the dishes immediately and wipe down the counter. Then I pour some juice into the glass pitcher (newly washed) and fill the rest with water (I like watered-down juice, or rather, juiced-up water). I pour myself some into a glass, take the pitcher with it, and then I go into my room, turn on my computer, and start to right on some topic, any topic.

Now I have to say, I really marvel at all this, because I am not like this is San Francisco. I cannot seem to get into the habit of anything at all there—and the result is sometimes total disaster! I mean I have absolutely no sense of these little sacred rituals. It is only here where I see to develop them and practice them.

And it is interesting how these little routines so quickly become adapted and part of one’s reality, for instance the BBC … has become such a staple part of my life that I’ve become acquainted with the daily programming. And I love the questions and the way they report and their accents and I often find myself parodying them afterwards, laughing aloud to myself—you talk aloud to yourself a lot when you live alone, so I’ve found whenever I’ve done it—like this morning, or this afternoon, rather, when I finally woke after falling asleep at 8 am—when the BBC lady was interviewing a Mongolian gentleman about the fact that the government has instated the requirement that all Mongolians have last names. And the commentator said something like, in a british accent which added to the humor, pardon me, but it did—“wasn’t it the communists who made you take away your surnames in the first place? (without letting him answer) … Wouldn’t you say, in effect, the communists destroyed your cultural identity?!” The questions were so leading, and there was clearly such a language barrier, that the man merely answered yes, and continued to speak about how last names were originally created out of the location of one’s house in relation to natural landmarks. And the disjunction between these two sets of realities was so clear, and funny, so the whole thing made me laugh …perhaps I haven’t explained myself well enough, but. I think it relates to what I was getting at before about researcher and researched and the projection of one reality onto another, how impossible it is and yet still we do it, attempt to “empower” by projecting our own language into some other reality.

I’ve been feeling emotional today, I’m sitting at the tiergarten (the golden gate park of berlin) writing this, since I exited the u-bahn and walked over here, to the side of the canal and sat down in the autumn air. It is so beautiful today, and so warm. So I’ve been feeling emotional today, really, crying at the littlest things. Like the fact that after lambasting the way American troops have little if no regard for Iraqi custom and manners, few skills at feeling people out with respect and silence and observation, and rather approach an unknown and scary situation with a macho and self-protective kind of a strut which actually does them more harm than good, though they do not realize this … (For example, when this reporter was riding in a tank with Americans Iraqis were shouting “protect us! Assist us! Work with us!” and yet the Americans rolled in with a self-righteous attitude, raising their rifles, acting like Rambo, with probably no one even translating what it was these people were saying, peacefully … I mean, I don’t have to be there to know the kind of attitude he’s talking about—to talk loudly, to take up space—even Americans in Germany are easily identified for this reason (and to top it off most of them are new Yorkers, excuse me new york friends) … In any case, after lambasting them, this BBC commentator had the courtesy to say, or the presence of mind, that though this may be an overall impression of American troops, “I do have to say that the fact is, however, after things had settled down, I got to talk to one young man, Mike, who didn’t fit that macho description at all, and showed me pictures of his wife and his son.” Which is the when I started to cry, being overly emotional today, and because as simplistic as it may sound, one of the things that makes this world so complicated is that I truly believe that most people believe what they do is for good, for someone’s betterment, in whatever way—that most of us love someone and show love, and have complex relationship and eagerness and a sense of adventure—I can see these young guys and girls who no doubt approach their mission with the same hope and expectation the way any of us would approach some huge new change in our lives, and that, even if they have to simply justify it to allay their own personal fears they must think, what we’re doing is right and we have these incredible bonds with our families and … yet! … this sense of goodness and righteousness can still manifest in such violence and poor decision making and moreover, I marvel that we can all disagree so wholeheartedly about what is right and what is good.

I would say, I know these people, I mean, I myself am these people, have engaged in things I thought were right but were not, was eager and curious and unknowing and later laughed at myself about it, or was ashamed. Unfortunately, no tragically, the stakes, in a war like in Iraq, are so high and people’s lives are being played with but essentially I think the human error that goes into creating these large scale disasters stem essentially from the same place.

And I think, and again it makes me cry to think, that I have the ability to sit here for hours and write and time and more than that the sheer desire to do so and that I have a little bit of euros in my pocket that I got from last night. And that for the first time of having traveled on my own, which I’ve done before for longer periods of time, I have more of a sense of the rightness of being alone and an appreciation as opposed to the question, how soon I need to get back, how soon I need to return to some place else and that the forward motion I desired to have is really there and not a myth or a fabrication in my mind. Just now I can hear the bells of the cathedral ringing, they are unusually beautiful and the tones darker than I remember cathedral bells being, I look up and realize that daylight is almost gone because I slept until 1:30 pm today and though I tried to rush out of the house I could not and there is this sense of urgency about me this afternoon that time would stand will and I could sort of … and again I want to cry thinking the line, “rage rage against the dying of the light” which are the words from Dylan Thomas that my father recited at his father’s funeral. And yet only the other day he said to me, when I said how much he had to live for and how he had at least thirty years of his life left, “katie, the last thirty years of your life are hell.” And then I think how it might finally be time, though I have always known that I would do so, to really sit down and right a good long letter to my father, and the thought of doing so makes tears come to my eyes again, because I think how many women have such damaged and complicated relationships with their fathers.

The change of schedule, sleeping during the daylight hours—makes me feel in a trancelike mood, three cups of coffee keep me writing vigorously though the strangeness of the light and the time maintains my trance as though jetlagged still. Boats pass on the canal and I think of Orlando and his strange beauty with a kind of painful yearning, like that I experienced as a child. That I believed I belonged in some other era and so yearned for it that is sometimes hurt and I remember writing this and the feeling of this autumn day like I have not experience since leaving the east coast.

Though I suppose one thing that is distinctly different about me now, katie as older, is that I no longer have the same anger towards the lack of time, or rather, the lack of reverence to time, that we spend so much time in absolute irreverence to what occurs around us, to some of the deepest things we love most, like the changing of the light … In fact I realize that I have an appreciation for irreverence. In fact I would say that I love absolute irreverence, masks, costumes and performance. Even as I still love those things that seem to lack all of those elements of artifice. To connect and then to disconnect, to be at constantly at battle between the desire to connect and to then escape those connections, this, today, does not feel at conflict but rather I have arrived at some kind of resolution about it.

Enough of the rambling.

White Nails

I’ve found that the best way to paint my nails and actually let them dry is by painting them and then sitting down at my computer for a good hour. Typing keeps them upright and moving and basically unencumbered. If I don’t sit down at my computer after painting my nails, I am always trying to multitask … er, well, this is multitasking, but this is mutually beneficial … What I mean to say is, I appear to be unable not to multitask in general (okay, maybe with the exception of when I’m having sex, depending on how you think of multitasking and what kind of sex … anyway …) and so when I paint my nails I always ruin them soon after because I get too impatient and try to do some activity that will surely ruin them before they get a chance to dry … like cooking or dishwashing or showering or getting dressed or using the toilet or putting on a new CD.

Tonight I sit at my kitchen table listening to the jazz station—it’s really a very good station, the best station in Berlin next to the BBC, but I can’t listen to people reporting news while I’m trying to write. So jazz it is. I just spent about an hour singing and making myself after-dinner hot chocolate (notice the multi-tasking), trying to come up with some vocals to this beautiful music I got a hold of. I answered an advertisement placed by a composer/musician in need of a vocalist. We talked over the phone and then today we met in person and spent the morning listening to his music. It is really very beautiful, sort of tribal, Dead Can Dance-esque, but not overly cheesy. In a way I had this vision of me in some edgy girl rock band … but this will probably be more interesting vocally anyway. In any case, I’m developing a vocal track that goes with the music, and it is beautiful enough to inspire me to jam with it, you know, to just start singing over top of it without any specific direction from the composer. You know it reminds me of some of what I’ve heard at Hrair’s house, the use of some middle-eastern instruments, like the ude, for instance, or however you spell that. So I was sort of instantly transfixed this morning, listening, cause it brought me back to California—or rather, a spiritual home not necessarily in California, but in the location of hearts and people. Excuse the gushing.

So I made dinner for myself tonight, a real simple pasta, while listening to the BBC. I listen everyday; it’s interesting to hear how the rest of the world feels about the U.S. election (pretty grim). I feel fairly informed listening to the BBC, it’s better than NPR anyway, but the commentators are almost as smug. You know, incidentally, my parents and others are always asking me what kind of writing I do, or what I do in general, and I really write a lot everyday, always have, whether it be just in my notebook or on the computer, though its generally not edited and organized and packaged and product-ized, mostly rambling pieces like this one but in various formats and contexts. Anyway, if I sent everything and exposed you to everything it would overload your inbox but just let me know if you’re not interested in any of it, you know, things like this one, cause I can easily remedy that and take you off my email list and I won’t be offended. My life isn’t really any more or less interesting in San Francisco or Berlin or Iowa City, but being as Berlin is relatively so far away (though in our global post modern world is anything far away … sarcasm) it somehow seems more important to keep people informed as to what life is like, what I’m doing with myself (to legitimize why I’m so far away?? I’m not sure). Moreover, having no real friends yet, I have time to write about it and email you.

Right, well then (I learned that from the BBC). Since I last wrote a lot has happened here, though nothing big on the earning money front. I mean to say, I haven’t earned a cent. I’ve been on the prowl for something regular at a bar or restaurant, although that’s a bit sticky because of my lack of German skills. Still I feel confident that something will come my way. I do eat at home, or pack something, I’ve been good about that, or freeload off someone I meet. Okay, or spend like 1 Euro 50 on a dönner kebab. I’m trying to be a bit better about a normal writing schedule, waking up, making coffee and breakfast (hard roll and swiss cheese and ham) at home and then beginning to write, anything, distractedly, note-form, whatever, stream of consciousness. I’ve found that, like I’ve heard from so many writers, blocking out time to write and just writing actually does make the writing come. And even if it starts out disjointedly, I’ve been finding that I develop into a regular pattern by at maximum an hour. In the afternoon I bike over to Kreuzberg (an artsy, ethnically diverse district in East Berlin south of the area I live in), as of late, since I’ve been hanging out there a lot for various events or meetings with people or attempts to go to dance class.

I started hanging out with some people who run a performance space over in Kreuzberg. The first person I met was Krylon Superstar, a black drag queen dancer and performance artist who was performing at this crazy bar called White Trash located in Mitte (the “middle” district of Berlin). White Trash used to be a Chinese Restaurant but is now a bar and restaurant with rude tattooed bar tenders—all super hot women—and kitschy décor. Anyway, I started going over to Le’Space, as its called, to check out Krylon’s photography and was invited to come back the next Saturday to see this performance of a woman named Barbara Brockhouse, who was absolutely fabulous. She is a feminist performance artist who did something called the Secretary Show. It was basically about her life as a secretary, simple but complex, and it made me think of doing something similar about waitresses. Anyway, she sang, recited a script, I wouldn’t call it poetry exactly, but it rhymed, like Dylan’s Talking WWIII Blues—that’s a compliment on my part. That night, I met this woman Sylvia who is half Japanese and half German and speaks perfect American-English. Sylvia is working on a documentary about the making of a Japanese porn film here in Berlin, and the various “socio-political-feminist-identity-race” issues associated with that. I’m not trying to diminish her work or anyone else’s, I’m just trying to condense all this for you.

Sylvia is currently making a new film about three Japanese women in Berlin: one who believes in “true love,” one who is the owner of a brothel, and one who “lives sex”—the actress playing this part is the infamous performance artist living here in Berlin named Tokyo Rose (a Japanese knockout notorious for taking men out on dates, getting up on the table in the middle of the restaurant and doing a spontaneous table dance. Then eventually beginning to pee on her date). Tokyo Rose has apparently been kicked out of every club in Berlin and was banned permanently from one of the city’s most famous queer clubs, SO36. In any case, Sylvia and I started talking about the film and she asked me about whether or not I might be interested, as a writer, in helping her with the script, since writing is her weak point, and she wants the film to be, as she put it, sentient, complex. She and I got to talking about our mutual interest in gender and sexual politics and the creation of feminist art. It turns out that she has been working with an incredible professor here at the Berlin Art Institute named Katharina Sieverding, who apparently is one of the few professors there interested in gender-political art.

In any case, this Saturday I’m going to go back to Le’Space to see one of Sylvia’s films and a performance by Tokyo Rose, who I’ve heard has a very low sultry voice and I’m looking forward to meeting the legend though I’ve heard she’s settled down and lives in a nice apartment in Mitte now. Anyway, regarding Le’Space: So, the woman who runs the gallery/bar/performance space is named Ayana, and she runs it with her boyfriend Marco (both Americans who don’t speak a work of Deutsch). Ayana also attends classes with Katherina Sieverding as an honorary student. How does she do it? I asked Sylvia, since Ayana doesn’t speak any German. Well, apparently there are so many English speakers that many of the classes are just conducted in English. So I’m interested in attending one of her seminars if possible.

Meanwhile, Ayana and I began talking about the fact that she and her boyfriend are leaving the country to go work on this big artsy soap opera project. They are going to be located with the rest of their “team” to Togo … I know, don’t ask, I can’t remember all the details. But the point is, she asked if I had any interest in taking over the performance space. It is 680 Euros and month, in the heart of Kreuzberg, and she and her boyfriend live there and run the bar, show art, and host performing artists and writers three to four nights a week. She said that they are able to live and eat and pay rent off of the profits. So I said I was interested and low-and-behold the very next day the guy whose name is on the lease contacted me and we went out for coffee to talk business (this is what I mean by freeloading for food). So I sort of flipped out and thought, yea, I could do this, and actually for the past four to five days I began negotiating seriously. It didn’t look possible to do it alone until Juan said he would actually come run it with me. We talked it out over the phone in a series of expensive and crazy and static-filled conversations. So we were actually about to have this space in our name for an initial contract of three months. Then today, at the very last minute, another couple got chosen to do it who could just take over the entire lease indefinitely because they already have German citizenship, etc … They are going to run a record label out of there. So there were a few days of real excitement and hardly sleeping a wink, lots of phone calls everywhere and dropping cash like mad on all the expenses to communicate with people here in Berlin—cell phones are so not cheap here. And as I said I no longer have a landline available in my house.

In any case, the excitement is over, I sit here in gloves and a hat in my cold bohemian apartment in Prenzl.berg (the east berlin district I live in)—no matter, I only pay 75 euros on my room. And all in all, I have a great deal, and it may be just better in the long run if I take it one step at a time and make more contacts and just try to do my own performances at the places already available, which are many. In fact I’ve already talked to this woman at White Trash who organizes a performance art night there.

Since Juan and I negotiated about running Le’Space together, he started making plans to come out to Berlin, which haven’t been neglected, so he is actually going to come stay with me during the month of November. I am looking forward to this. I think he might find some interesting things to do musically in Berlin and perhaps I can convince him to come back. As for modern dance and contact improv classes, I’m still working on getting to my first class. I missed the first one I tried to go to ‘cause I got lost in Kreuzberg. Then yesterday when I tried to go again they had closed for a week break. This dance studio is called Tanzfabrik and it is actually adjacent to Victoria Park, which is the park my father used to go to as a child in Kreuzberg. It has this beautiful waterfall spilling down the hillside right at the very front of the part. Today I was over there and I hiked up to the top and it made me happy to be there knowing that my dad had so much history there.

Today I ordered coal—a half-ton of coal—to be delivered to my apartment so I can start lighting those coal fires and heating my house. I will be having a roommate soon too, so unfortunately that other super cheap room in my apartment is no longer available to YOU and I wish it were YOU and not “Paul from Dublin.” Just kidding, I’m sure he’s a great guy. That’s really all I know about him, except I think he’s a musician and/or a DJ. So no more strange photo-shoots at four in the morning in his empty room, ala the photos you just received and perhaps viewed. That painting, by the way—the orange and red one with the chains and me in the Brooklyn sweatshirt in front of it—is just here in my apartment and the placement of my body in relation to it was actually unintentional at the time. Sorry if that was too disturbing of a photo. In any case, a roommate also means no big room to dance in and I have to keep down the noise, especially as I sing along loudly to this music in the kitchen. Oh well, if I’m not bringing in any cash, this cheap rent is a saving grace.

The last three days really kicked my ass in terms of the cold, so then today I wore quadruple layers and of course it was much warmer, so I got all hot riding my bike around. I hate that. Tomorrow will apparently be even warmer; I figured out how to check the weather. I am getting smarter about things, though I don’t feel like my German is improving terribly, even though I have been studying a borrowed German Intro textbook. What else? I finally bought myself a map—I was very stubborn about not buying one—but I gave in. It has helped tremendously though now I’m finally starting to get this city, and I bike so much everyday, like 45 minutes to Kreuzberg. I would ideally like to live over there—it’s a mostly middle-eastern neighborhood but also lots of artists and crazy people over there—lots of great places to hang out, including famous old clubs like Wild at Heart and SO36, among others. But I have this place for awhile and if I can master this coal heating thing I may be okay through the winter. Though I have to say that it’s really frustrating not having any warm water in the kitchen sink to do dishes with. Thank god though I do have a hot shower and a toilet inside my apartment (unlike many others similar in price to mine).

[Brief diversion: I love jazz songs with really simple lyrics like: “I ask myself everyday … what’s the best thing for you … and I can see that the best thing for you is me.” Okay, and, I’m just putting this out there, but have you ever really listened to the lyrics from Fascinating Rhythm and do you get what Ella is talking about?]

I’m trying to cast nets in a lot of different directions artistically, mostly because I have no history here and it feels easier to try new things, or relatively new things. I’m working on a photography project called something like, Both Sides of the lens: the studied and the studier. It doesn’t really have to be titled but that gives you an idea as to the theme. As for writing, I applied for a position to be a book critic at the Ex-Berliner, which is the main English language magazine here in Berlin. Who knows if I can get that gig, but we’ll see. My big news regarding writing is that I had an epiphany about my next book, which I’ve already been writing—all these scraps of essays I’ve been starting and adding to probably for years. The epiphany was that I developed a title and a conceptual plan for the book as a whole. I’m going to write a series of essays called Sex Matters—Why Sexual Politics Should Matter to You. I want to talk about sexual language and communication, or lack there-of, and how our inability to talk about sex and treat sex has diverse effects, into issues that would seem to be wholly unrelated. I want it to be geared towards people who don’t think of themselves as feminists and/or don’t feel like feminism and sexual politics are relevant to their lives, etc … I believe that even among activists, politicized professionals, and other academics outside of gender studies, sexual and feminist politics are often viewed as secondary to issues of race and class. Definitely less important than foreign policy and the economy. I want to be able to relate sexual politics to a wide variety of issues, like immigration, to electoral politics, and to personal politics … interpersonal relations.

I started thinking about relating sexual politics to immigration specifically when I wrote an article this summer about how women have a hard time proving political asylum based on an experience with rape (rape used as a tactic of war) because they don’t have the vocabulary to describe in detail the kind of persecution—as it is referred to—that they experienced when they are attempting to articulate their asylum declaration to an immigration officer or lawyer. I got to thinking about how even women in my close circles would feel uncomfortable describing in detail a sexual experience—any sexual experience, good or bad—and if women who are from a supposedly “sexually liberated” country can’t do it, then what about women who come from countries that aren’t “sexually liberated.” And this reminded me of a story a friend told me about an advice nurse who couldn’t even use the word vagina when talking to her about a UTI … and so last night I had this big epiphany about how much I have to say on this topic. So I developed about 15 potential essays for the book, including an introduction and an element of creative nonfiction or lyrical essay. I want to try this project in sort of one big breath, writing more than editing and stopping. That will be new for me—I mean, look at me now, I’m sitting here describing it but not actually writing it—then if it’s a big bad mess I don’t much care. I realized how important and passionate I am about this subject and I want to be able to better articulate that. Oh, and then earlier today I was reading this great interview with director Simon McBurney: Rachel Weisz Talks With Simon McBurney (Zembla Magazine, Issue 5 Summer 2004)

So Rachel says: I think childhood is full of sexuality but it doesn’t know how to be sexual. Do you know what I mean? S: I do. I remember an encounter I had with a friend when we were nine or ten. He was describing to someone else how he masturbated. I didn’t know what they were talking about and he realized that, so he made fun of me. As a child I would say I was extremely uniformed. R: As you should be at ten. S: Well, I don’t know if you should or shouldn’t. My nephews and nieces know perfectly what all that means. But in terms of sexuality I can’t remember a time when I was not aware of it. I remember when I was eight or nine I found a naturist magazine. There were naked men and women and I found it absolutely fascinating the nakedness of the body. I folded it up and hid it in my shoe and I remember my mother finding it and not telling me until some time later, and laughing at me. The power of that, the shame, was enormous. In his writing, Bruno Schultz identifies specific moments in childhood that are extraordinarily powerful, that lay down the lines in permanent memory. R: I don’t know why we’re talking about sex—I suppose because of Measure for Measure. S: If you talk about love, you talk about sex. R: And who could be more sexual than a child? I would say children are the most sexual creatures. S: Yes, because there are no barriers.

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S: Maybe that’s partly what I feel about love—I’m pretty much persuaded that it’s not something you find, it is something that you make, step by step. It is a construct. R: And a collaboration? A work in progress? S: It is a kind of work of art in a way.

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S: That’s the great conundrum with sex. Because we know so much of love has nothing to do with sex. And yet we are constantly being invited to the idea that sex and love are the same thing. Of course they are sometimes, but mainly not.

So reading this interview I was reminded of two things: one is my essay called l-o-v-e and r-a-p-e, about the juxtaposition of (violent) sex and (true) love. I want that essay to be modified to be part of the book. The other is my childhood (and post- childhood) shame about sex … and this bizarre memory came to me. When I first started becoming aware of having sexual feelings I was terrified about the possibility that this sexuality—any sexuality—would be discovered by someone else, most specifically people who were close to me, like my parents. And the memory is of me standing at the piano singing Christmas Carols and how I was afraid that I was singing the line oh come let us adore Him too loudly, because to sing it to loudly could potentially put me at risk for exposure that I had a sexual mind. Chew on that. Hopefully not everyone had that same level of childhood shame about sexuality, but I think that many people can identify on some level.

Related to this book idea, I’m working on the fifth issue of my ‘zine, The Fabricated Love Affair Art Project. This one is going to be about the birth control pill and birth control in general, and incidentally, I’m looking for contributions. I know that there are a lot of stories out there about women’s experience with the pill, perhaps both good and bad. I want to expose more about it because I don’t think that doctors, even good female gynecologists are doing a very good job. In fact I know they’re not. So could I get some of your stories about the pill? Seriously. Please! It will only take a second, it doesn’t have to be the most polished beautiful piece of writing you’ve ever done—if you obsess over it you’ll never do it, I know how that goes. Anyway, I may just quote a section of what you write, or use a few words, or site some kind of statistic, but I want YOUR reactions to the pill—or other experience with birth control—whatever they may be, good or bad. Guys are welcome to contribute, by the way. What comes off the top of the head? I think eventually it would be important for this book as well.

The other night I finally wrote a book review of one of my most favorite books, Whores and Other Feminists as a sample book review for the Ex-Berliner. I may have shot myself in the foot but maybe I’m just what they’re looking for. In any case I thought it was important to risk it and write what I feel strongly about. The only section in the magazine, though it is politically lefty in general, that even mildly deals with gender politics is their sex column, and the columnist is a totally homophobic moron. So I would have written an angry letter in protest anyway so I decided why not try to be on the staff. Whatever.

I’m also reading, which is good. I didn’t do enough of it during the months of August and September even though I promised myself that I would. I just finished bell hooks essays called Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work. It is beautiful. I also read a short story by T.C. Boyle called “She Wasn’t Soft.” It’s about a rape and I wonder if anyone else has read it. I’m starting to read Malcolm Lowry’s, Under the Volcano. Much to do, much time, better to keep busy than not. I’m about to go dance in that big empty room, practice my turns, and do sit-ups. Then I’m going to fall asleep, I hope.

Lots of Love

katie, Kathryn, kate, kates, katesy-poo, katis, Katie M’lady, Agent q, katerinika-tika, frog