Der Feuervogel aufersteht.

As soon as I heard the WFTDA championships would be in Malmö, Sweden, I blocked my calendar. I bought my train tickets in April as soon as they were available to purchase. (You can only get them 6 months in advance.) I applied to be a volunteer when that opened, and I checked the box to say I was interested in a leadership role.

A bit later, I got an email with a list of the domains asking which one(s) I would be interested in leading. Based on my skill set, I put food and volunteer coordinator. I got food lead. I wasn't expecting it to be 2 full days, rather split over all four days (four half-days), but I was on site making coffee, putting out food, making more coffee, and solving the problems I could solve without bothering the event producer or the other food lead (a local, who took over the last 2 days). I had assistants for each shift, so it wasn't just me. I like having mid-level authority, with a set of decisions that I am able to make and some people to delegate to, while there is someone above me to deal with the more complicated shit.

I got a lanyard and a staff badge out of it, though!

I like volunteering in the food room, because I get to meet people and chat with them and see old friends. Only volunteers, officials, and announcers were allowed in there, not the teams, but a third of the volunteers were from German leagues, so I knew a bunch of them already. Also at that venue, there's direct access to the track, so you can still watch some of the games.

We had a feed of the scoreboard on the closed-circuit TVs, and we developed a sense of what was going on outside based on the sound of the crowd. For example, if a European team was playing a North American one, any time the European team got lead or scored, the crowd was LOUD. If the NA team got lead or scored, you could hear cheering, but just a fraction of that for the Euro team.

I don't have stats, but I'd guess that most of the spectators were European, because it's the first time Champs were held in Europe, which means it's the first time Champs were affordable for the Euro derby community, so everyone who could swing the time off work etc came. And all the Euros were cheering for "any team that's not North American," basically. (I was cheering for any European team, then any team that's never won it before, but the final four were the exact same teams as in 2024, just in a different order. Yawn.) No European team has made the final four in a long time. I think London did a few times, but they never won.

There was a lot of bullshit surrounding the decisions of how many officials from each region were selected, but that's all WFTDA internal, so I will only complain internally. But I talked to a bunch of refs from the US while I was working, and they asked what differences I saw over here, because I got my start over there. I have 5x the games in Germany as in the US, so my experience is skewed, and my NA (southeast) experience is old. But one thing that occurred to me while I was watching one of the medal games was that there are SO many more non-cis-dude officials in Europe. We could use more officials of color, for sure; roller derby in general could be less white. But depending on who applies to a game/event, you can fully staff a ref crew (7) and most of an NSO crew (10) with people of marginalized genders.

In fact, most of the leagues I've worked with (in Germany primarily) say they'll preferentially staff marginalized people. We have a check box on our application form for "I belong to a disadvantaged group." Euro Derby actively wants to include people who aren't cis white dudes and to develop newer officials; that does not seem to be a priority for NA Derby. A lot of the refs who were at champs were the same ones who were at the playoffs (some of them more than one playoff!) and who are at champs again and again. In fairness, officiating at that level of play does take a lot of experience, but there didn't seem to be a lot of spaces for first-time-champs officials. (I didn't apply; I don't have the skills or experience. I'm fine not being at such a high-stakes event! It seems stressful.)

Anyway, though, I had a fun adventure on the train (direct to CPH on the way there, change in Hamburg on the way back) with only minor annoyances. Though the DB app told me my connection was no longer available (because the train to CPH was delayed, so I wouldn't make my Öresund train) while still showing my train arriving; the app has some issues. I tried to work a bit on the way there, but my old Chromebook running Linux is annoying to work on. The way back, I didn't even bother trying to work or read. I tried to nap some, but mostly chatted or faffed around on my phone.

(And in all this, my cat had an ear infection, so my sitter had to try to get her to eat tuna with pulverized amoxicillin in it, which she did ... until Saturday night. So I'm shoving pills into her mouth now. But also I'm leaving this afternoon for another derby event, so I got an appointment with a house call vet who's supposed to bring an injectable that lasts 48 hours, which will last until I'm back home Sunday evening. And get to shove pills in her face again. Everyone hates it.)

For roller derby, of course.

I was accepted as a nonskating official for a tournament in Graz, and there's a direct night train between there and Berlin, so I used that. The rolling stock on that route is older, so my options were a shared couchette berth (6) or first class (lol). Well, there was also sitting up in regular seats, but I am far too old for that shit. I could also have flown, but plane tickets were about a hundred Euros more than the berth I booked.

There is not much space between the beds when they are stacked 3 on each side. I think if I take a night train again, I will request a top bunk, even though ladders are annoying, because you can actually sit upright. And if you've met me, you know I'm not tall, so it's really cramped.

The cushion on the southbound train was uncomfortable and hard, and I think I slept a few hours. But another major factor in that was ... the electricity in the entire car went out before we even got to the Czech Republic, so it just kept getting colder and colder, and even with flannel jammies and a blanket and my scarf, I was shivering. Also eye mask and mouth mask is uncomfortable, but what are you going to do? Once we got to Vienna and everyone else in my compartment (and like the entire car) got out, I asked the conductor if I could move to a different car that had heat, so I spent the last 2 hours in a seat, occasionally napping, and getting great views of the valleys. We also had an hour's delay, but I made it to Graz, got coffee in a cafe at the train station, then went to my hosts' to shower, drop my stuff, and eat before taking a tourism walk through the central historic district.

Graz is cute, and I strolled around until I got too cold and it started getting dark. Also I was sleepy from not sleeping on the train. I had to ask people to repeat themselves so many times, because Austrian accents are so hard! But I felt better when Germans said they had trouble, too.

The tournament was fun. I had 4 games as ePLT and one as SK. I almost never SK anymore because I can do ePLT, and SK is a good place to put newbies. I'd still rather be on skates, because skating is so much fun, but sometimes you just don't want to drag your skates on a train.

The way back had a slightly newer car (probably substituting for the one I came down in), and we had electricity the whole way. There were delays again, so we got to Berlin at 8 instead of 7:30 (which is still pretty rude for sleeping on a train). I slept a little better but still not well. The cushioning was a bit thicker, though.

One of the people who came from the Netherlands said she had a capsule room in her train (from Amsterdam), which sounded really cool, but they aren't offered on my route. I'm planning on going to Malmö for World Champs in October, and I haven't decided if I'm going to fly or take the night train to Copenhagen (and then the commuter rail over the Öresund bridge). If some other Berlin folks want to night train and book a cabin together, that would be fun I think. But it's like an hour flight from Berlin to CPH. Undecided at the moment (also it's 8 months away).

I really like going to derby events and meeting officials from other countries and seeing people I only see at events. It's so much fun.

A year ago, I wrote this post wherein I laid out five things I wanted to accomplish last year. Let's see how I did.

1. Get my own apartment: YES! It wasn't the best timing, but I have my own place and am paying about 80% (including electricity, internet, and the tv/radio fee) what I paid before.

2. Earn more money: sort of! I continued to have my steady job, and I also had a temporary gig copyediting a board game and did two books for a Big-5 publisher. (One of which is coming out soon! I hated it, though, so I won't tell you what it was.) I also got a mini-job, which is a super-part-time job that's limited to around 600 Euros per month in income, and it's tax free. So as long as I can keep that job, my rent and utilities are more than paid for, so my other income gets to go to things like health insurance, retirement savings, food, my bus pass, and all that stuff.

For the coming year, I'll have the steady job, the mini job (through June for sure), and potential Big-5 books. I'm also probably translating a book into English for a small press in the US, but I haven't signed the contract yet. (The terms are fine, but some of the wording is a lot more relevant to authors than translators.)

3. Rewrite the space diner book: Not really. With all the paid work for other people plus moving, any time and brain power for writing was basically done. But I spent a month writing most evenings in the week and made progress both in word count and planning (which counts as writing work!) I've also spent the last two weeks on break from work (partly because there is nothing to do because most people are on vacay) and writing. It's up to 45k (out of a target of 75k). I need to have it finished by the end of March, because April and May are currently blocked for translation.

4. Clean up my computer: LOLOLOLOL

5. Finish the baby blanket: YES! It was about 2 months late, but I finished it and gave it to parent at parent's birthday gathering (where they promptly wrapped Baby up in it because it was a little cooler than expected.)

I thought I wrote about this, but I can't find a post. I live in a city with a ton of things to do (too many, honestly!), but I usually sit at home. So I wanted to do a cultural activity every month: Call it 75%. I started off strong with a trip to a museum of GDR culture in January, a concert in the Philharmonic in February, and the Leipzig Book Fair in March. Then April I had an editing gig and no time to do anything. But in May I went on my first Labor Day protest, a bike ride which went partly on the A100 highway. And then I spent 6+ hours on regional trains to take the citizenship test, which I finished in five minutes.

For June I was out of the country and/or packing up all my belongings. Then in July, I went to the Jewish Museum with my aunt and her boyfriend and also up the Reichstag cupola, which I hadn't done since 2014. In August I went to the Dyke* Festival.

September had several things, though I think only one of them falls under "cultural activity" in the way I originally intended, and the other two are "experience German culture." The first one: I went on a walking tour of Marzahn, which is a neighboring district to mine and was also built from nothing to massive apartment blocks in the 1970s and 80s. I didn't know there was a cute Altstadt with an old church and rustic row houses! Then my Genossenschaft had something called a Wohntag (residents' day?) in one of the big courtyards. It involved food stands, crafts, and musical performances, including a choir that sings pop music over techno beats, which ... well, this is Berlin. The final event was the 40th birthday/anniversary of Neu-Hohenschönhausen, the district I live in. It was in a park a short walk from me, so I went over. It was basically a street festival, with sausages and beer and the fire department giving tours of their trucks to little kids. That sort of thing. I didn't stay long.

In October, I took the regional train to Potsdam to see an exhibition of art about the GDR apartment blocks (Plattenbau). It was interesting, and some of the art was contemporaneous, and some was from after the end of the GDR. But what I was most interested in was this one that was snapshots of this guy's life in the same block I currently live in (but several houses down).

I don't know what happened to November, but I didn't do anything according to my GCal. Do I count going to a Christmas market as my cultural activity for December? It's German culture for sure, but I've done it many times before. So I dunno. Calling it a 75% completion, basically.

2026

1. Get a finished draft of the space diner book to a couple writer friends who want to beta it. Like I said above, March is my intended timeline, and if I write for one hour every evening that I'm home, I should manage it.

2. Continue taking advantage of the assortment of things Berlin offers. I subscribed to a local magazine that lists upcoming exhibitions and shows, which I hope will get me going on that.

3. Invite people to things (with the hope that they invite me to things in the future). Seeing my local social circles off having fun together while I'm home with my cat makes me sad. I don't know how to get people to invite me to things, so I guess the only way to show people that I 1) like doing things 2) with them is to do things and invite them. (I have one person I can and do ask to go places, but she's not always available or interested.)

4. Take better care of my body. I'm turning 50, so it's important not just to go to the gym and keep skating but also to stretch, sleep enough, and drink water. Also eat right. And do proper dental hygiene.

So, enough about that. I'm going to write another post later about what I did in 2025, because on a personal level, a lot of it was good, even though on the grand global scale, a lot of shit happened.

Apparently the last time I posted was 3 months ago. Even when I mean to be diligent, I can't.

I've gotten used to living out here. Would I like to be closer to things? Yes. But beggars can't be choosers, so here I am.

I ordered some cute mushroom art (Johanna Forster) for my kitchen wall, and once I get frames (and get Ricki to come over with her drill and whatnot), I'll hang it up. I want to get rugs for the living area and sleeping area, but I can't decide what I want to get, so I keep postponing the decision. I also need to get a new kitchen runner, because the cheap mat I got in the old place is really gross.

I took a spontaneous day trip to Ueckermünde yesterday, which is the coastal town I went to for my birthday in 2022. Once again in the off season, but that's fine. The weather was clear, if a bit cold, but sitting in the sun with a view to the beach and having Kaffee und Kuchen was worth it. I also saw the biggest swan I've ever seen in my life. I had a nice latte and waffle at a cafe called Wohlfühleck (good feeling corner), walked the half-hour to the beach, strolled, sat, strolled, had coffee at Nordlicht (which is almost entirely meat/fish dishes), strolled, watched birds, and walked back to the train station. I left Berlin at 8:25, got there around 11, and got the 5 pm train home.

I got a pet stroller for Musya, and she doesn't seem to hate it. She sleeps in the basket part sometimes (it doesn't fold, only the part with wheels does), and when I take her out, she sits up and looks out with her ears up (curiosity). She started squeaking after a short time today, so I brought her back in, and she went in the litterbox a few minutes later. lol. We probably won't be going out again for a while, because the weather is about to become Yucky.

And of course she just jumped in my lap when I was about to get up and go play some more Hades 2.

I haven't updated since before I left for the US (which I should also write up soon). I got my kitchen installed! It took the nice Ukrainian man 2 evenings (about 7.5 hours) and only cost me 450 Euros. He also installed my ceiling lights, which required drilling.

Honestly, it seems like it would be so much easier on the structural integrity of buildings if Germany would just ... provide kitchen cabinets and ceiling fixtures. But that's just me.

Today I'm gathering my kitchen stuff and clothes and toiletries and packing them into a rental car with my computer & cat, and we'll be sleeping at the new place starting tonight! Then Friday the moving company is coming (at 9 am).

There are still a bunch of things that need to go into boxes, but I've run out of space to put boxes (and I'm too short to stack them more than 2 high). So after I get my daily use stuff out, I can move things around a bit and make more space. That'll be tomorrow's project.

After I got the keys, I went over to IKEA for a kitchen planning session. I had extra time, so I wandered the showroom a bit to test out desk chairs and look at some bed frames I'm interested in. (The one with two drawers under it is just too high.) The kitchen we put together is 1500 Euros.

It's got oak veneer cabinet fronts, black handles and countertop, and a black faucet. Naturally, the ones I liked the most were out of my price range. The way the kitchen is laid out means there has to be a cabinet between the stove and sink and another between the sink and wall. I opted not to get a dishwasher, because I'd rather have storage space (and I'll probably get a hanging drying rack to save space). The cabinets are each 40 cm wide, so I'll have a grand total of 80 cm of counter, which is less than this apartment (which has 120 cm). There's 120 cm under the window, but cabinets won't fit there because they're too tall, so I'm going to have to get a shelf of some sort. (The floor to sill height is 86 cm.) It'll probably be a 3x2 Kallax, because there's only 125 cm between fridge and wall.

I've also ordered a fridge but I have no idea how/when it will be delivered; there's supposed to be an email or SMS about making an appointment, but I haven't gotten it yet. I still need to figure out what washer I want to get. That can wait until I'm back from the US.

I'm picking up my huge Ikea order (kitchen + furniture) Friday morning with a derby friend. I might ask around if anyone is available to meet at my new place and help unload, because that will go faster with >2 people.

Germany doesn't include any lights in your apartment, not even in the hallway, so I'm going to have to install my own. But I'm finally getting the Ikea death star lamp I've wanted for 10 years. And I need to get 3 more fixtures: one for the sleeping side of the main room, one for the foyer, and one for the kitchen.

I've contracted movers for July 11, which gives me a few days after I get back to put everything I didn't get boxed up before vacation into boxes. And hopefully take a load or two over and my cat, so she can be safely locked in the bathroom while moving happens (open doors, cat under foot, etc.) I'd like to spend a couple nights there before the big move so Musya can get used to it, which means assembling all that furniture before I go.

(Seriously, this timing is SUCH a nightmare.)

I've got some photos up here. (Location sharing off) I want to get an air mattress so I can offer hospitality when people need it. I think the layout I'm planning will allow it!

And the life update: I took the train 3 hours each way to take the citizenship test so I can submit my application in fall. (It takes 3 months to get your certificate. Because ... of course it does.) The test took me about 5 minutes to take and a few more to go back and make sure I didn't miss a page or anything. There are 33 questions, and you need to get 17 right to pass. They're taken from a set of 300 possible questions plus 10 specifically about the state you live in (30+3), and the questions are all available online, even in an interactive mode so you can see whether you got it right immediately. There's also a practice test, on which I got 33/33. The questions aren't hard if you know German history, current politics, and how a republican democracy works.

I actually went to Leipzig yesterday afternoon on short notice because Zelenskyy made a state visit today, and that potentially would throw trains into chaos, and I didn't want to risk missing it. So I texted the 2 people I know who live there, one of them said I could stay with her, and I got on a train a few hours later. Which was delayed enough that I would miss my connection (with the next train in 2 hours), but Deutsche Bahn did not completely fail this time, and the other train waited. (About half the passengers of my train got out and scurried across the platform.) Leipzig is about half an hour from the place I took the test, so it was much less anxiety inducing.

I finished the test in enough time to rush back to the station (15 min walk) and get the same train I came in on (the RE13 to Magdeburg), which runs once an hour. Then I changed in Dessau and read on my tablet for 2 hours.

As I probably mentioned already, I've been looking for an apartment since the beginning of December, and seriously looking since February or March. I've filled out contact forms for probably 150 apartments at this point, and I got a grand total of 6 showings between March and this past week.

( prefab concrete construction )

( Landeseigenen vs. Deutsche Wohnen )

( Genossenschaft )

( the process )

Rough day, basically given up hope that I'll ever find a place of my own, so I drank the little airplane bottle of Berlin Distillery's Sundown Gin that's been on my shelf for a couple years. (It's really good; citrus and gin taste. Tastes like watching a sunset.) I put on this 5-hour YouTube video about Disco Elysium I'd been watching for over a week while I crocheted. I had about 90 minutes left I think? When it ended, I checked my phone, and there was a message from the Genossenschaft, sent at like 8 pm.

I opened it with trepidation, but it said "wir freuen uns" (we are pleased to) and I read it closer, and they picked me. Of the six people who they showed it to, I'm the one they chose. Me! I have no idea what their criteria are, but I guess I fit them.

I haven't received the contract yet; it's the weekend. The rate quoted in the ad was (this is insane) 314 € a month warm (incl. heat, water/sewer, trash) (230 cold). I'm currently paying 550 a month for 20 sqm in a shared flat in a much more convenient location (tradeoffs! I would love to stay in this area, but when you get a lease for somewhere you don't hate AND it's a Genossenschaft, you take it).

( some logistical stuff )

The only major downside is that it's in a part of the city that's served by only one S-Bahn, though there are two tram lines and some buses. No U-bahn at all, because East Berlin. It's also about 45 minutes away from roller derby and board meetings (every 2 weeks). It could be a lot worse; I focused my search on the east side for a reason. Spandau is over an hour to roller derby. I'll also have to change which branch of my gym I go to, because my current one is ~45 minutes from the new place (incl. 15 minutes walking) and the one in Marzahn is about 20 on the express bus.

tl;dr: I'm moving into a commie block and am pretty pleased actually.

I went to Tromsø, Norway, for almost a week with a writer friend (from Codex). She got there the day before me (because airfare was better for her that day), and my flight didn't get in until 10 pm on Monday (because I had 4 hours in Oslo airport, so boring). Our goal was to see some northern lights, and we definitely did. This year is the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, so it's the best opportunity.

On every bus or minibus, my companion and I were the only people wearing masks. Covid or not, I've started to enjoy not getting every damn cold or other respiratory virus that's going around.

Tuesday we went on a minibus nature tour around Kvaløya I think, then we went to a fancy place for dinner (Mathallen), which was the indulgent meal of the week (at 1450 NOK for a 5-course meal with a beer and a glass of port). On the way back to our lodgings, we saw northern lights over one of the mountains across the sea.

Wednesday we took a much larger bus trip to a Sami reindeer farm, where we got to feed reindeer (and pet them if they let us -- they are SO SOFT in their winter fur), eat soup (we're both vegetarian, so neither of us tried the reindeer one), and learn a bit about Sami culture. We were supposed to go sledding, but the weather has been too warm, so the conditions were bad, and that was cancelled. After that, we had a hot tub on a boat (in the harbor). It was extremely cheap and extremely sketchy, but we had a nice view of the sea and the mountains from the deck. I don't remember where we had dinner. I think we had bread at the apartment? I think it was too cloudy to see anything in the sky.

Thursday we went to a bakery for second breakfast (coffee! cinnamon roll!) and then on an excursion to the southern point of the island (Sydspissen), walked along the shore until the wind was too much for me, went on An Adventure in a public woods/park, then opted to stop in the university museum because it was heated and not obscenely expensive. There were exhibitions about geology and the Sami, including one from the 70s that hasn't been updated (or translated into English) and looked a bit problematic. That night for dinner we went on a little cruise (max 12 guests) out into the sea to watch for auroras. Dinner was vegetable soup or salt-boiled cod with boiled potatoes and carrots (very traditional Norwegian). I had the fish, and it was really nice. Caught that morning! The guy who runs the tour lives on the boat and is a fisherman, and he pays a chef to do dinner. We ate while he sailed us out away from the city lights, then we saw some nice auroras.

Friday morning we slept in a bit then went to a coffee shop for second breakfast and picked up some groceries for an early dinner (semi-fresh tortellini with pesto calabrese), because Friday was the new moon and the day we booked our minibus aurora hunt (which left at 6 pm). They drove us a good 90 minutes away from Tromsø to a mountain by a fjord, where there was absolutely no light pollution.

The sun and the atmosphere cooperated so much. The lights were SO bright that you could see well enough to walk. You could see them DANCING. At some points, you could even see the colors with the naked eye because they were so strong. I took a zillion photos, and hopefully some of them turned out well. The fancy camera app I don't know how to use had a lot of graininess, but the native pixel camera app did a lot of smoothing, so some of them came out weird.

I still need to clean up the 50 GB of photos on my computer for duplicate, then I can offload these to my computer and figure out how to use Affinity Photo editor.

Saturday we had nothing scheduled, but we went to get lunch at the Palestinian restaurant (it turns out I extremely do not like fuul mudammas) and picked up semlor at the bakery (I forgot it's almost Lent, so now all the fancy pastries come out). Then I went over to meet Arctic Roller Derby. I only planned on saying hi and picking up merch, but I borrowed skates and joined them. It was fun! They're a very small league, and there were 2 newbies and the coach, so we did some newbie drills. Derby culture is such that when you travel, you see if there's a league where you're going and meet up or go to practice or something like that. So I can now say that I've skated with the northernmost roller derby league in the world!

Then we ate dinner at home (vegetarian meatballs like from Ikea with leftover calabrese) and started packing, because we both left on Sunday. (I came home; she's in Oslo.)

Sunday we went for a walk after breakfast then back to the bakery for another round of coffee and pastries, after which we went back to the apartment and chilled until it was time to go. The Tromsø airport is small and cute, and the only thing I bought there was a tiny bottle of Arctic gin. Her flight was a couple hours after mine, so she putzed around town or something until she had to go to the airport.

And today I had to work, and at some point I need to go to the plant store because my kalanchoe has bugs (aphids probably) so I need to kill them and repot it. I can't bring it into my room because it is extremely deadly to cats (I got it before I knew I could get a cat). There are a few shelves where I could put it, but they get no sunlight. I'm going to go see what I can do with some vinegar and Q-tips.

Hello! I'm still here, and I read my flist every day, even if I don't comment ever and am really bad at posting. Various other fora and social media sites have somewhat taken over the space where writing in my lj used to be.

(I'm in too many discords, in a handful of social slacks, and on bluesky. Plus far too many whatsapp groups, because that's what everyone in Europe uses.)

Time for a 2024 wrap-up, I guess? Because I have no idea what I did unless it's in my google calendar, that's what you're getting.

January: started a new freelance gig for a medical journalism/scicomm site. I copyedit for them.

February: took a short trip to Dresden to ref a scrimmage at a rookie bootcamp.

March: I went to a panel discussion about whether there's life in space where a German writer friend of mine was talking; Bear City hosted a multigame weekend (I reffed 2 games and ALTed 2); I went to Hamburg to ref a game. I also joined a gym.

April: I went to Hamburg to ref 2 games.

May: On May Day, I went to a tree blossom festival with a friend. It was fun, even though the trees were all finished blossoming because of climate change. I also went to a table reading of a different friend's screenplay of a book she wrote. I went to Erfurt to ref a double header, and the next day I went to a chili festival with friends.

June: I started the month with a trip to Hannover to ref a game. For some reason, I always thought Hannover was really far away, but it's actually closer than Hamburg and less expensive to get to (if you get slightly shittier train times).

The weekend after that was the European roller derby playoffs, so I spent 3 days watching roller derby, and we had a watch party for the 3rd place and finals. It was fun.

Then I went back to the US for 4th St. Fantasy. I stopped over in Iceland on the way west this year, and tbh given the very short connection time and the fact that you have to go through passport control, I will probably continue stopping over that direction. (I'll get to the flight back soon.) 4th St was great, and I took a lot of great notes in the seminar and a lot of the panels. I caught a ride back east with a couple folks from Baltimore and stayed with friends.

We had a family get-together at my cousin's place, and it was good to see everyone who could make it. Especially grandma.

Getting back to Germany was very stressful, because there was about an hour's connection, and you had to go through passport control, and because I have a non-EU passport, I had to stand in a very long line, during which time I got 5 emails and text messages that my flight was boarding and I needed to report to the gate so I would make my flight. I did the "please let me go ahead, I'm getting all these "report to the gate" messages and they just overhead paged me" thing. Then I couldn't figure out where my gate was because the sign was hidden behind other signs and a queue of people for a different gate. (Also my shoes were loose and flopping because I didn't have time to tighten them after landing.) But I made the connection and had the porridge I intelligently pre-ordered when I bought my tickets.

July: My old roommate Maureen was here for a few days, and we didn't do a whole lot together, but she stayed with me (because she couldn't find a hotel room because of the Euro football tournament). I went to see a special exhibit of Caspar David Friedrich at the Alte Nationalgalerie. It was really cool (and very crowded). His art is mostly about loneliness and survivor's guilt (his older brother died saving him from drowning).

I started a regular video chat with my sister, which we've mostly kept up. I also got a financial advisor.

July is Pride month in Berlin, and I went on the Dyke March with friends.

August: A friend of mine celebrated their successful pregnancy with a mocktail party. I went to a discussion/chat at the local SFF bookstore. I went to a friend's first stand-up show.

I reffed 2 games here, went to Erfurt for a boot camp (where I reffed another scrimmage), and I went back to Erfurt the next weekend for a scrimmage (Saturday) and Team Germany training (Sunday).

Most importantly, I threw a party to celebrate 5 years since my divorce was final. If you'd asked me in 2018 if I'd be celebrating, I would have been confused. But now, things are ok, even if I'm much less financially stable than I would like.

September: I reffed 2 games here, and I hosted a visiting official who gave me fucking covid, so I had to cancel my trip to Hamburg the next weekend, where I was supposed to NSO 4 games.

I went to Elstercon in Leipzig. It was very small and in a crowded space, and I only knew a couple people there, so I attached myself to them and hoped they would introduce me to others. I feel like that would make a good essay topic, how fandom spaces (in Germany) are insular and not particularly welcoming to newcomers. Much like the rest of the country in general. I decided to skip Sunday and go to the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, which is a monument to people kicking the shit out of Napoleon's troops. There's an exhibit about the battle and various artifacts that were found on the battlefield with a scale diorama of the battle. And there's this fuck-off huge sandstone monument with nearly 400 stairs (they tell you helpfully at the bottom when you begin going up the tower) that's just ... mad. After that I met a derby friend who lives there and we got cake.

October: I met someone I matched with on a dating app for coffee and cake. Nothing came of it. The cake was amazing, though.

I went to Hamburg for a tournament (scorekeeping). I stayed with a skater/official who lived in Lüneburg, which is about 45 miles south of Hamburg. She lives in a massive WG - a full duplex with a dozen rooms and 9 residents. She's lived there for 10 years or something, and the WG was founded 12 years ago. People have come and gone over the years. Friday evening we cooked together and ate with everyone from the WG who was home and interested (I think we were 8?). I want to live like that. Maybe not with so many people (or with 2 usable kitchens (kitchen 2 is mostly for drying laundry)), but the sense of community is something I miss.

The next weekend, we hosted a double header (I reffed both games).

The huge news from October is that I had my visa renewal appointment, and, if you didn't guess, they let me stay, even though I don't earn enough money for the government's liking and none of it is from German sources (aka "you don't have to live in Germany if you work for a Canadian company"). So he extended it for 3 years (the maximum on a freelance visa) and gave me "Erwerbstätigkeit erlaubt," which means I can get an actual job (full- or part-time).

The sad news is that my grandma died. She was 95, and she'd been saying for years that she was "too old" and "ready to go," so it wasn't unexpected, but it's still sad. She had a good run, and she was with it until the end. I'm doubly glad I got to see her in June. I can't make her memorial service (in January) because I have an appointment to pick up my new residence permit 2 days later, and that can't be moved.

November: I'm not going to talk about the US election.

I went to a discussion of space law at the SFF bookstore. It was interesting.

I took a day trip to Rostock to ref the first roller derby games ever in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Which was really neat to be a part of!

I met a derby friend (who's Irish and lives in Hamburg) and wandered around the Bergmannkiez (so many food) and got cake at the cake shop I mentioned earlier. After that, I went to a book club at the SFF bookstore (which is in the Bergmannkiez) to discuss The Saint of Bright Doors, which is one of my favorite books of 2023 (only about half the group liked it).

I also picked up a short-term editing gig through a writer friend, the pay from which is going to fund my trip to Norway in February. It should run partway through January.

December: I went back to Hannover, where I was head ref for my first real game. It went well, and one of the coaches said he liked my communication style in official reviews. I don't really want to be HR; it's too much responsibility. I did it because a friend was head NSO and begged me to do it.

I had an interview for a minijob I applied for. I don't know how it went; German interview practices are extremely different (you tell them how old you are! that's illegal in the US!), and even though I prepared, everything fell out of my head. I was supposed to get a call or email yesterday, but I didn't, so I assume that's a no. (I'll see if I can find a contact email to follow up at.) So I applied for another minijob at a different store, in addition to the other open application I have. I just want another 500 euros a month, man, then I can maybe get my own apartment (lol, there's nothing available for 600 a month here).

I went to a Christmas market with someone I matched with on a dating app. It was fine. We're meeting up again on Thursday and going to the Wall Memorial (because they've never done any of the tourist things here). I don't think I want to date them, but I'm always happy to collect more friends.

Tonight I'm going to a white elephant party, and tomorrow I'm meeting a friend for dinner (Japanese), after which we're going to game or watch a movie or something.

And that's 2024 so far! I want to say I'll post more regularly next year, but I say that every year.

I've been slowly becoming aware of needing to get a new phone, if only because my Pixel 5 was 3 years old and google was going to stop supporting security updates for it sometime this year. And I keep getting emails about the new phones on offer and all this shit.

But my Pixel 5 worked just fine until suddenly it didn't. The power button got stuck, somehow, and it decided that the slightest nudge was a long press, so it started the emergency SOS protocol a bunch of times before I was able to go change the setting (so long press was "assistant" instead). Then it would get stuck in a boot loop because it thought the power button was being held down. That was pretty alarming. So I managed to get it to power off and STAY off, and I left it for like 20 minutes before turning it back on, and the power button was no longer possessed. Hallelujah. But something got messed up with the button press to take a screen shot, which was also not ideal.

So I used the 15% discount from my emails to get a new Pixel 8, and if they give me the full trade-in value of my Pixel 5, I'll have gotten it for about a third off.

But I probably need to get new bike tires, because I completely failed to inflate them the other day. I'm going to try my roommate's standing pump, because it will undoubtedly work better than the little hand pump I have, but if that doesn't work out, it's off to the bike shop (where I'll spend more money).

I was in Dresden for 24 hours last weekend; the first 6 were spent at roller derby, then I slept (and had my phone misadventure), and in the morning I meandered a bit through the old city. There were supposed to be a bunch of protests (mostly counter-protests to a planned fascist march), but fortunately nothing started until after I was gone. I was worried, because the old city was one of the meeting areas (near the main station), and one of the counterprotests was meeting at the Neustadt station, which is where I got my train from). But I didn't encounter any fascists or counterprotesters, though I saw 2 guys get out of a pick-up truck with some stickers that looked kinda fash in the train station parking lot.

Dresden is my second-favorite German city. It's got a very different vibe from Berlin, and I like it. I would probably rather live in Hamburg than Dresden because of the politics in Saxony (that's where the PEGIDA assholes come from. The Wikipedia page gives "of the West" as the translation of "des Abendlandes", but Occident is more accurate for the shitty racist connotations.)

9 months left on my current residence permit. I hope I can a) get an appointment at the immigration office in a timely fashion (hahahahhahaahaahhah lol) and b) stay here. I'm not eligible for permanent residency because I'm here freelance, and that has a longer requirement -- 5 years instead of 3 if you have a real job. But you can bet I'm going to apply for PR as soon as I'm eligible (January 2027) so I can apply for citizenship. (Permanent residency is one of the requirements for eligibility. There are a couple others that I don't qualify for, like a blue card from an EU member state, or a citizen spouse.)

They changed the citizenship law, but it doesn't go into effect for another couple months, so what's currently on the website is the current law. It's supposed to make it easier, but in all the reporting I've read, there haven't been any specifics. Some people are supposed to be eligible after 3 years if they have "good integration measures," but there is no information anywhere on whether that applies to freelancers or only people with real jobs or only EU blue card holders or what. But I have plenty of time to figure it out. As long as they let me keep staying here, because I can't afford to live in the US.

I wouldn't have health insurance (though I would probably qualify for Medicaid again in Maryland); I would have to buy and insure a car and pay for gas. Yeah, I could just get a job at fucking Target idk but like. I'm able to have real health insurance here and I don't need a car; the new copyediting gig basically covers my fixed monthly expenses (rent, insurance, roller derby dues, bus pass, storage unit), so I'm only digging into my savings for groceries and incidentals.

So anyway, expect more panic starting in September or so.

The calendars I ordered were supposed to be delivered on Wednesday, but the packaging was damaged, which means it has to be sent to a central location, where the contents will be verified, and then it will be repacked and sent to me. The last time this happened was with an order of cat supplies, and it took long enough that I ordered another bag of cat litter 3 days later, and it arrived several days before the original shipment.

So we will see how long it takes a box containing 4 books to get to a central location, verified, and returned to me. I don't understand why it can't be done locally; it's not that hard to find the packing slip and compare the contents, right? I did find takers for the extra notebooks, though.

I've started at my new gig, and it seems like it'll be a good fit. I haven't actually done any of the work yet; I've been added to the slack and google workspace and project management thing and the airtable, I've been oriented to the workflow and stuff, and I've been assigned a handful of things to edit, which I will look at on Monday. (They're paying me for 10 hours a week or thereabouts, and nobody works on Fridays.)

I should go for a walk or something, because I haven't since Tuesday, but it's still cold out and I'm going to complain and be a big baby about it. (I did YouTube videos Wed and yesterday.) Tomorrow is roller derby, so I'll get plenty of exercise then.

Sunday I'm going to Potsdam for a tour of the plants hibernating in the orangery, which I stumbled across doing research for a short story. It's only 10 Euro, and I have unlimited regional travel, so getting there is free. It's an hour and a half to get there, so I'll probably aim to get there a couple hours before the tour (which is at 2 pm) and walk through the castle park in the horrid grey and maybe rain until it's time for the tour. It'll be starting to get dark after the tour.

I wish I could remember if I already bought a book about Sanssouci; I enjoy having the little histories at my fingertips, and they have better pictures than I'd be able to take. I might have the one about Charlottenburg. (If I do, they're in storage, because I don't see them on my shelf.)

I've begun to feel a bit unmoored from, idk, life, in a way that I recognize is from a lack of general structure. When I was in grad school, I had classes, teaching, homework, grading, and other parts of my life to keep track of and make sure I had time for and keep generally organized. When I had a job, I had a place to be from 8:30-5 five days a week, and then I had friends and stuff to do things with.

Now, with the only structure to my day or week being what I impose on it, I don't know what's going on, and if asked what I did any given day, the answer is, "uhhh..." Everything feels vague, and I don't like that. So I want to start writing things down (like I said in my previous post).

I've been managing my planning with a regular spiral notebook that I write daily tasks on, but Leuchtturm has a BOGO promo on their planners and calendars right now, so I ordered a daily calendar (with hourly slots) in A5 and a weekly calendar in A6. I'm hoping to use the weekly one to do menu planning and keep track of what food I have, because twice a week I have to get groceries, and I hate figuring out what to cook. I'm getting 2 of each because of the promo, so I've offered the extras to roller derby people. I ordered them today, so I won't have them until the middle of next week.

Thus far in 2024, I have written another 800 or so words in my nonfiction book (which somehow has almost 30000 words in it, but I don't understand how that's possible), started 3 microfiction stories for an anthology call that opens the 15th, done a lot of laundry, and played a lot of video games. I've decided which of the 3 pieces I want to work on to make submittable; one of the rejected ones might go to my newsletter subscribers for fun.

I also signed a contract for a part-time freelance copyediting job that I got via a writing friend, and the money I earn from that will cover my rent and insurance, at least, so that will stop the massive drain on my savings. Will it be enough to get my visa renewed in November? I sure hope so. I also hope, once I finish my book, that people buy it off Amazon or wherever, and I get income from that occasionally.

Strange Horticulture was a fun puzzle game, and I've played it 3 or 4 times already. After the first run, once you know the answers to the puzzles, it goes a lot faster. I want to get all the endings (there are 8, I think), and I only have 1 achievement left on steam. You play as the proprietor of a plant shop who collects new and unusual plants. Your neighbors come in and ask for particular plants for various reasons (mostly relating to medicine, but also magic). There's a monster on the loose, and you have to stop it. (Or you don't stop it, if you want to get those endings.)

Bear and Breakfast is like Stardew Valley but more stressful in some ways and less stressful in others. It also has a lot more story/background than SV: there was some sort of authoritarian government? and there was a big fire in the valley, and people stopped visiting. You play as a young bear, Hank, and you befriend other woodland creatures who help you out. A raccoon operates the decoration store, and you pay them with "valuables" (trash); a beaver renovates the derelict cabins that you rebuild into your hotels.

More stress: you're not just managing your farm; you have 5 resorts to manage and match guests to rooms that meet their requirements (which include hygiene, food, and heat). You can get staff (eventually) to manage these things for you, but they cost money per day, and it's sometimes more than you earn from your properties. Less stress: there's no combat. All your crafting items are gatherable in the world, so you don't have to go fight vampires in the mines to get your minerals to craft with.

I still like my current living situation, and my roommate and I are still getting along, so I'm not in the "must get out now" situation like a year ago. It's just ... I want a second room to sleep in and a kitchen big enough that I don't have to store all my small appliances, spices, and canned goods in my (bed)room.

I had been going to move into a newly built 2-room apartment in a co-op(ish), but because of reasons, mostly involving a lack of steady income, I had to back out of that. On the plus side, I guess, I'll have another 5 years' worth of living expenses once I get my money back. (On the minus side, I'll have to figure out how to prove that it wasn't income, but a refund of monies paid, and that it was money I had before I came to Germany. So that's going to be fucking annoying.)

The housing market here (renting OR buying) is insane. I don't qualify for a lease (see: no steady income), and the public-assistance apartments are ALSO impossible to get and, aside from that, inhumane. The rule is that if you are one person, you can get a one-room apartment. Most of these apartments are 30-35 qm (350ish sqft) including the bathroom and kitchen, and fucking no. I have a friend who lives in one on the other side of the city, and I couldn't do it. There's no open floor space (so no yoga at home), and the kitchen is MAYBE 1.5 qm (20 sqft) tops.

So one thing I'd love to do is buy a little house or a bigger apartment with some friends, but none of us have any money lol, so that's out of the question.

I talked to some derby folks, though, and there's this group, the Mietshäusersyndikat (rental-house syndicate), that finances community-focused housing purchases. A lot of them are, like, "our landlord was going to sell our building, so we all got together and talked about it, and now we own the place," but there are a couple smaller ones where a handful of families buy a house together. The trick is that there has to be some sort of community orientation for it. Added bonus is that, because the MHS lends the money, they own the building, too, so it's permanently out of the commercial real estate market. (GOOD. Fucking real estate investors will be among the first against the wall.)

SO. My big (impossible) dream is to get a few other people (queer/women+ artists/writers, ideally) together and go through the MHS to buy a building and turn it into 3 apartments and a community space. The community space could have 2 "bedrooms" to rent to people who need studio space and an open plan living room/kitchen for book clubs, knitting circles, yoga lessons, whatever (on a pay-what-you-can basis). If there's a back yard, that could be used for events, too. But a) the housing market here is insane, b) I don't know anyone who wants to join me in this, and c) anywhere in Berlin where there are structures suitable for this type of project is way outside the cool part of the city, so no one would want to voluntarily move out there. Also d) half the time when I filter my search for not-rented-out houses, the description talks about having reliable tenants. I'm not going to fucking evict people.

(The building would need to have at least 7 or 8 rooms and the ability to subdivide into 4 separate apartments and add bathrooms and kitchens if needed. I've been dream-hunting on ImmoScout, as you do, and there are some houses that might work, and others that could work if it was like a couple shared apartments. I'm also being picky and trying to stay on the east side near where I currently live, because I like it over here. It would also have to be adaptable to barrier-free living and an elevator.)

A couple people have suggested joining some alternative living facebook groups and searching there, or trying to join an existing Wohnprojekt (which is impossible, because they're all full), but I also would rather live with people I know and not a bunch of strangers. Like, I think my friend in the social apartment would love to live in a bigger place (and she's a queer woman artist), but she has no money (she's disabled/unable to work) and NEEDS an elevator. We couldn't live in the same apartment because she's allergic to cats, so there would have to be separate ones. I know some people from roller derby who fit the bill, but see above re artists and fucking broke.

I don't know if it's worth contacting the MHS for one of their advising sessions, because I don't have anything more than a concept right now. I just want to live alone but also in a community/with friends, and maybe support my local queers.

June 23, 2023
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June 24, 2023
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June 25, 2023
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I loved Iceland, and I absolutely want to go back, preferably with someone whose vacation style is more similar to mine, and for longer and perhaps with a rental car, because then you can decide how long to spend in each location you visit. I’d like to go to the north coast as well; I hear there’s some great wool in Akureyri. (Not that I have any need to buy yarn! I have so much that I’m not allowed to buy any unless I have a specific project for it.)

I'm going home for a few weeks in June, and in the middle I'll be off to Minneapolis for 4th St Fantasy. (I'm a very intelligent person and remembered that I have frequent flyer miles. Turns out it's less than 30k miles from Baltimore to Minneapolis and back!) Am I going to see anyone there?

On the way back, I'm stopping over in Reykjavik and spending 3 days there with my sister. It will be interesting. She hasn't travelled internationally since the early 2000s (maybe even pre-9/11), so I'm making all the spreadsheets and packing lists and all that, because a) it's what I do and b) it'll make her feel better. We're staying in a hostel because it's so much less expensive than a hotel, and that was an interesting conversation to have. (We're getting beds in a 6-bed women only room, which has a private bathroom, rather than one on the hall.) I asked her what she wants to do while we're there, and she was like, "I'll just follow your plans." Which from seasoned travellers would irritate me, but she's not a seasoned traveller, so I hope she likes viking museums. (I've also got swim in the public pools/hot springs/whatever on my list, because everyone says that's the thing to do.)

I've got half a mind to brush up my Old Icelandic, which would be about 75% useful for reading and 10% for speaking or listening (hahahahaha sound change), but everyone there speaks English anyway. (It won't be like when I was in Denmark and Sweden last year, when my Duolingo Norwegian got me through reading signs pretty well. OK, that and the fact that I spent 3 years learning dead Germanic languages and the various sound changes that occurred, so I used my German, English, and Norwegian vocabularies to make an educated guess on the Danish or Swedish signs, with reasonable success. But absolutely failed at pronouncing anything properly or understanding anything spoken.)