Partir Ou Mourir

Today is the last day of the year.  I am making more postcards.  I am meeting new people.  I will have a resolution by midnight tonight, Berlin time.  Writing for my next project has begun, small progress as it might be.  Tonight my brother and his friends are going to take me out, though I don’t know where (please God, let there be electro, and cute French boys to watch).  We start off drinking some glühwein here at Erik’s apartment.  Then I don’t know where exactly.

Last year my new year’s resolution was to find my brother, and here I am in Berlin.  I did my work.  In case you forgot, or didn’t know, last new year’s was spent at a New York City hipster house party where yours truly shared a giant pink mess of jeger and champagne all over the walls and some coats.  My resolution then was also to forget about Viriginia and that entire mess, or at least write about it and then get over it.  Now I have to come up with something to pacify my nightmares.  When I graduate, when I publish Everything That Never Happened To Me, when I live in Portland and come back with memories from Berlin, then what?

I have a few ideas, specifically from strange dreams I’ve been having.  I have this one dream where I keep cutting my own hair and braiding it, and giving the strands to a blonde boy whose face I cannot see.  He has long blonde hair and birds are always stealing strands of it to build a nest in a nearby apple tree.  The first line that keeps appearing is, When I die – . The setting for my work might be something a bit from a dark fantasy of one’s futue.

Meanwhile, I’ve set up my reservation at Alcatraz near Senefelderplätz, in the general area where my brother lives.  When I went to put in my deposit I met these two nice French boys, one of which immediatley started talking to me about the Silvestern (the new years).  I felt embarassed talking to a French person and letting them know I’m American.  You always think of the French as the latest in fashion and food, maybe a bit stuck up, but face to face you are just struck by how simply a conversation can go.

I leave you with a German song by Stereo Total, “Ich bin der Stricherjunge.”

Speak to you soon, my merry canner friends.  A thousand friendly kisses.