how the lost sheep returned

of course the matter with the cheese (see my last post) weighed heavily on my heart. after all i'm a good catholic girl. not that i felt compelled to go to confession. i mean it was just cheese and i've already destroyed the evidence. still, i felt it would suck big time if one day i realized that my reservation on a fuzzy cloud had been exchanged for a spot in a giant pot of boiling water. so i tried to prove my goodwill by attending a mess again last weekend.

it actually wasn't the first time that this idea had crossed my mind lately. about five month after moving to b-town, i received the monthly leaflet of "st. marien" in my mailbox. not only did this show me that god had ultimately blessed my move, but it also reminded me that it had been over eight years since i went to church the last time. and not that i've ever been there on a regular basis. of course i did the whole enchilada of baptism, first communion and confirmation. but in germany people tend to be rather fickle about religion and just try to get by with the big milestones of getting baptised, married and buried there. and of course they'll go to the interesting messes like christmas or easter.

my family is pretty typical of that. except maybe for my late grandma who went to mess every sunday. she even had a fluorescent "virgin mary" miniature on her nightstand. i think it was filled with holy water from a pilgrimage to lourdes. when i was little and stayed over at her house, i used to sleep in her bed. and like all grandmas, mine snored like crazy. so i would pull the blanket all over my head and try to fall asleep like that, clutching the "virgin mary" tightly against my chest. though as the cheese affair has proven, that didn't seem to have made me any more devout.

i've always been rather conflicted about religion anyway. when i was in 7th grade, my religion teacher asked us to draw god one day - just like we imagined him. and mine turned out to be rather traditional. an elderly bearded man in a robe and sandals, sitting on a cloud and holding the bible. i figured he should look a bit like jesus on those ancient paintings. after all, he was his dad and i had never heard that jesus came after mary look-wise. i drew the picture with crayons, but i didn't have a red one. so i used a red marker for his lips. and since man do have eyelashes, i also drew some nice long ones on god's face. but then in class we all had to present our pictures and the other people had to express what they saw in the picture. so when it was my turn, there was complete silence in the room before somebody shouted "he looks like a tranny" and people started to giggle. and as somebody else asked why my god was wearing lipstick, my teacher explained that what i wanted to tell people was that god could also be a woman. i actually didn't, but i nonetheless agreed with her. so i became the freak-girl who drew god as a bearded woman with flaming red lips.

anyway, i went to mess last sunday. and actually it went by pretty quickly and the priest even made a joke or two. the only thing that bugged me is that i couldn't find that one easter song i had always liked in the prayer book anymore. i guess it must haven fallen out of the christian church song charts.

i stole cheese AKA the reconstruction of a crime

yep, i stole a "president le roux french country cheese" this week. an "extra creamy" country cheese for matter of fact. for 2.40 euro. and i know this sounds like a pretty shameless attack on the already weakened german economy, but i can assure you that it happened totally by accident. really. but in case you wanna try your own hands at shoplifting, this is how you do it:

look for a rather crowded aisle so you need to leave your shopping cart behind as you approach the cheese shelf. select your cheese carefully and take it from the shelf.
then -and this is the important part- you need to lose concentration for a moment. i recommend to either yawn generously or to reflect on that cute boy you kissed the past weekend. whatever works for you. then just as this moment is about to pass, you'll thoughtlessly slip the cheese into your tote. and i recommend you're going to use a tote for the day of the planned crime, as this kind of bag usually has a pretty big opening. this movement should come very naturally for you as your shopping cart isn't at hand, remember?
then you'll just walk back to the shopping cart and continue loading it with food. (if you get baguette, grapes and a bottle of wine you could have a "french dinner" that night.)
and now the tricky part. the check-out. you'll place all the product on the band for the cashier to ring up. but not the cheese!
after about half of your stuff is rang up, you'll carefully open your tote to take out some cotton bags. and then of course, you'll discover the cheese. you might have to practice a shocked facial expression at home in front of the mirror first, but for me spontaneity always works best. just, don't overdo it. you don't wanna attract the attention of your fellow shoppers or -even worse- the cashier. feign just enough, so that the security camera is able to register it. this is really important in case it comes to a court case about the stolen cheese.
now you've got two choices. a decent human being might take the cheese out of the tote, apologize to the cashier and then be arrested for shoplifting. but if you're a smart human being like me who values her money and loves her cheese, you'll discreetly drop that cheese back into the tote and then fill up the tote with the already rang up items. see, that way you can always claim that the cheese was with the other items on the band as well and that the cashier just might have not rang it up.
anyway, the unassuming cashier will ultimately present you with your total and you'll pay it and say goodbye, but not without displaying your most charming smile. which should come easily as you bask in the awareness that you just saved 2.40 euro and now got extra money to buy yourself some ice cream.

voila. who said leading a life of crime doesn't pay?

a very happy 4th of july to all of my american friends!

a reason to celebrate and get absolutely sloshed today

my two homes b-town and LA celebrate the 40-year anniversary of their glorious city partnership today. and i do think that many other relationships, especially between humans, could also get to that mark if they just stayed an ocean apart from each other. anyway, i decided to come up with a list of great things specific to each town. and as it's a very personally colored list, feel free to add your own stuff in the comments section!

LA:

the hills and the ever-present opportunity to crawl up one of them and get an instant view of the mayhem beneath. the classier alternative for a view is from the observatory, of course. and the laziest of people can always take the elevator up to the top of the arclight cinema parking structure. but it doesn't really matter where you do it, but when. and the best time is between 6 and 8 pm when the lowering sun wraps the city into a golden light. never seen a light like that anywhere else. maybe it's filtered by the smog?

i'm also still rolling around in my bed every night panically shouting: joe... joe... where are you, joe? where's my beloved trader joe's? which is german-owned by the way and still nobody has ever complained of a german supermarket invading the american market. but even the most beautiful trader joe's couldn't compare to the hollywood farmers' market on selma and ivar. it's got fruit and veggies, cheese, cut flowers and handmade gift articles. the soundtrack is delivered by some jazz musicians. and the best of all is that it never stinks. no fishy smell or else. which could be caused by the absence of fresh fish on the market or maybe it's just all absorbed by the smog?

the fairfax farmer's market.

great sushi. everywhere. the breakfast quesadilla at backdoor cafe. the mishmosh at canter's. the burrito ultimo w/ shrimp at baja fresh. any ice cream at mashti malone's. the pad thai at natalee's. yum...

old movie theaters like the egyptian or the mann's chinese. in places like those you can always take the risk of a movie turning out to be boring. after all, you can always admire the amazing ceiling for two hours.

nightly pool parties.

the LA times, especially the sunday edition. it's not a paper. it's a book. it takes you two hours to dig through and i can't imagine a better way of relaxing. plus, it's got an amazing calender section, the steve lopez column and dear abby. which is probably the best place to learn about the pitfalls of being a human being.

also, i do miss Us Weekly. the german edition of In Touch just doesn't cut it.

forever 21. urban outfitter t-shirts.

the buzz of the oscar season. well, i pretty much lived on the red carpet for the past 5 years. so besides shaking my head about the campaigns and banging my head on the coffee table by the end of the show-marathon, i also got to see the physical build-up. first it's just the bleachers. they usually arrive ten day early. then they lay out the carpet and arrange the flowers. the big statues follow about five days before the show. this is usually also the time that you get really angry at nicole, reese and denzel for taking over your hood and causing you to miss the bus every morning due to not knowing where the bus station moved to. but all of that is forgotten by the sight of the TV reporters on the day of the show. all dressed up in tuxedos or glittery gowns - at 8am. and of course, as a resident of the area you pretty much have an all-access pass with security. "here's my ID, sir. see that? cherokee 1733... thank you and keep up the good work." if there was just something that could be done about the swarm of daily helicopters over the house. like the smog will devour them.

amoeba records. it's got cute boys. and of course, you feel automatically cool when you enter.

ucla. i had a teacher that had worked with marilyn, audrey and judy garland. can't top that. oh, wait. there was the other teacher that told us about liz taylor and how she would only show up on set every morning if she was given a gift. a purple git.

the movie history in general.

wasting countless hours, reading in the aisles of Borders.

sneaking into hotel pools. which of course is so much easier when you've got an accent. but let's talk openly here. i've had been swimming at the roosevelt hotel way before lindsay discovered it. actually i would add the roosevelt hotel here on the list, but it was so much cooler before they renovated it and put a pool table into the lobby. like greta garbo would approve of that...

non-judgmental people. when somebody in LA speaks about his dreams, he's actually encouraged to do so. nobody says: "you can't do that." of course, people might encourage and then crush that person later on. but that's another story.

target. ultimately the greatest thing about LA.



part 2 with my observations about b-town follows underneath.

more great stuff

a shout-out to LA from the berlin zoo. that means, you guys over there are only about 6460 miles away from knut...







b-town:

ice cream at karademir. especially the sour cream-honey-sesame. lecker!

the in-LA-impossible-but-oh-so-encouraging sight of a rather mediocre-looking girl with a really good-looking boyfriend.

the public transportation is a dream. there's the subway, the street cars and the tram which is a cute small yellow train from the GDR era. and then there's the endless stream of double-decker busses. they truly never stop. (unless you're standing at the station at 1 am and hail corns as big as a small finger nail hit the ground to your left and right.) and then there's of course the soundtrack. it pretty much seems impossible to take the subway or else without being accompanied by the sound of a violin or accordion. it's all quite melancholy really.

it's flat, so it's great for riding bikes. though it's not so great for pedestrians that are run over by bikes.

being able to go grocery-shopping at supermarkets that i've been practically raised on. there's some sense of comfort in getting my food at lidl or kaufland again. i've been eating it through all of my childhood and teenage years, so i've established a level of trust in their products. which i will never have in campbell's soup or sara lee cake.

no smog.

there's knut, of course. enough has been said about him, but here's an update. he's still kinda fluffy though he weighs about 60 pounds by now. at least they estimate that as he apparently refuses to step on the scale. oh, those celebrities...

it's cheap.

beautiful churches. castles. buildings that are older than 100 years in general.

the libanese restaurant across the street from my apartment. not only is their food yummy, but actually they're originally from near my hometown. which begs the question if that makes me libanese?

the countless lakes and parks. the spree river with its many bridges. there are even real swans here. the only halfway living things floating on the LA river are probably people that have been killed and thrown in but aren't totally dead yet.

more ikea-stores than in LA.

the rich cultural life. the theaters. the museums (you know i do love them, just not their guards). the gorillas-improv group. the man that stands at the ku'damm street in front of the wertheim-department store and performs with a balcan-style violin player-puppet to the sounds of classical music. the boheme sauvage-20's parties. it's a good place for musicians. (apparently rufus wrainwright has found love here). the diverse bar and club scene. not having to go home at 2am.

surprisingly many great public pools and beach bars along the spree river. who needs the pacific?

karstadt department stores. to say it in the rather freely adapted words of truman capote:
when i get those horrible mean reds, the only thing that does any good is to jump onto the bus and go to karstadt. calms me down right away. the hustle and bustle and the commercial look of it, nothing very bad could ever happen to you there.

ready for my close-up

another update on my still-so-hot extra career.

for the past few days i've been doing this cool short movie that's being shot at film school as part of an all-european project about human rights. and it's not only cool and carrying an important message, but it will actually be shown at the next berlin film festival. which as you might know is one of the top three film festivals in the world. i've also been logging a lot of hours in make-up every day, as it's set in the late 40's. and not only did i wear a lovely dress and elegant hairdo, but they even aged me. which made me feel like nicole kidman donning that prosthetic schnooz for "the hours". it's so important to be able to sacrifice one's good looks for the sake of art, right?

also, i could have done another student project these days. but i didn't feel like the script was up to my level. i'm sure you understand that i gotta be careful about my choices at such a crucial time in my career. and of course i don't wanna be over-exposed by filling the background in every freakin' picture. but you gotta admit, i totally rock the business these days. especially if you consider how hollywood has refused to acknowledge me for all these years. which i really didn't understand. well, there's been my participation as audience member in a simulated episode of "deal or no deal" for the nbc executives. and i've been in the booty parlor training video as a guest at a sex toy party (you understand my concern about choosing appropriate projects in the future). but i'm the first to admit that i only got that part because of my company connections rather than talent. on the other hand there was that teacher a few years back that remarked what a great adrian i had been when we re-enacted a scene from "rocky" in class to analyze it. and of course there was that japanese student that followed me into the restroom stall during the break of that same class to tell me "how great my face had looked within the frame". they must have seen something that nobody else did.

another major obstacle on my road to now inevitable stardom had of course been the vicious attack on 9/11. i don't wanna shout here "i'm a victim too!" (which of course i am but you also know i'm humble as hell). but just a few days prior to the attack i was discovered in the most classy way by one of my customers in a restaurant who had asked me if i wanted to participate in her final project at film school. the part had just a few lines, but i would have spoken them with my german accent. of course it never came to be as my impending break-through was ultimately stopped by al-kaida. the movie shoot was delayed another month and took place at a time i was visiting germany :(

so i do wonder, how long it's gonna take those fuckers in hollywood to realize what got away. of course, everything could have turned out differently if they had just seen that 10th grade high school project about violence in which i played the naughty girl who steals the purse of an old lady.




look at me with my 40's hairdo. don't you think i look like ingrid bergman?

just a remark on the side... pretty redundant actually, but do feel free to read on

i think we all do agree on how awesome IKEA is, right?

but did you ever stand at the check-out with your new "furuhult" kitchen table or "leksvik" book shelf and realized that you might need to use the restroom pretty soon? and then of course you started to curse yourself for not going before you hit the store and filled that giant blue ikea bag with all kinds of stuff that you don't really need, but you took it anyway because it's cheap. and then you crossed your legs and paid your stuff and desperately hurried to the car to load it up and then you weren't so sure that you can still make it from the far end of the parking space back to the store and jumped into the car and drove off because you live just five minutes away anyway - just to be caught in traffic for another 20 minutes before you finally arrive at the safe harbor of your bathroom.

well, i've got good news. ikea not only has special restroom stalls for kids - which is already pretty amazing - but they apparently also designed their stalls to fit peoples' new furniture as well. i didn't actually do any studies yet on how much you could take in there and still comfortably pee and i seriously doubt that my "pax brevik" closet would fit. but i know for sure that that stall can hold

1 34x34 "lack" table
1 20x20 "lack" table
1 12x12 "agen" wicker basket
1 "dokument" paper holder
1 "alarm" alarm clock
1 "debut" candle holder

besides my purse and another full shopping bag. pretty impressive, huh?

and it's not that this is super-important or will save the world. but it does make the world a slightly better place to know that there are companies out there that are not only out for your money, but also treat you like human beings. including accommodating your needs. like peeing with an armload of furniture.