p.s. re what it cost

a committed and caring reader of this blog asked me why I saw fit to publicly list my expenses when I was out on the town last Friday. 

He said it wasn't clear from the post what I was thinking, which was this:

isn't it interesting that just because I'm spending the day downtown instead of home, it costs a euro to go to the bathroom and two euros to use the internet for an hour, instead of nothing?

isn't it interesting that because I'm out and about (and the weather is miserable), I have to go into a coffeeshop and spend a euro or two (and be a little humiliated) to buy a cup of tea so I have a place to sit and write some things for a little while?

and useful to note to myself that I nosed around the secondhand store for at least half an hour just because I saw it, and spent my 21 euros just because I was there and found a couple of things that seemed vaguely interesting? (I still buy things just because they appear to fit when I try on ten things and eight do not fit.)

oh, and I forgot 6 euros for a little stationery box with a wonderful magnetic lid that was supposed to cost 11.90 but it was a little scuffed, and I only wanted the box, and it had stationery in it but they didn't have any without so in a huge department store the salesman actually suggested he'd sell it to me for less, which seemed a minor miracle to me. (The box was to put the postcards in, the postcards were what I had been writing in the cafe, and the postcards, written on, and in their box, were a little souvenir from Portugal for young not-so-baby niece Fanny.)

and maybe, too, the listing of what I spent during the day was just a little organizational gimmick as a way to remember and tell about what I did on my day out, which is quite different from a day in, such as today is shaping up to be.

Elaine Showalter, why a woman can't write the great american novel

I just sent this article to my book group but I wanted to say it here too. I just read a really interesting article in Salon about a book by Elaine Showalter that is an overview of American women novelists for the last 300 years or so. 

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/02/24/elaine_showalter/?source=newsletter

Very very interesting I thought was the observation that the difference between British and American women writers was that in British families, having a servant was something that went very far down the economic ladder, whereas in American families, even well-off ones or slaveholding ones expected women to tend to domesticity (and yes, I did have to go put the potatoes into the boiling water in the kitchen before I could finish writing this paragraph).

life at home

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

domestic day, I guess. Just came in here (light-filled living room) from the kitchen, where there the swish-swash of the dishwasher I just started, a kind of fizzing sound from the pot I put on to boil so I could start potatoes for Felix's lunch (they get fried later), and then a heroic rising "I'm here!" of the electric kettle for my tea.

I wanted to start the day working on financial aid applications for our life next year when we are parents of a person in college (I started to write "child in college" but it wasn't quite right). And was thwarted by what is supposed to make your life easier - we filled out all these forms last year and we're already in their system but you have to know / remember the user id and password from last year and I couldn't find them anywhere, and of course it won't be 8 a.m. on the East Coast for several more hours so I have to cool my heels. I called Max at his bakery (so excellent to be able to call my son at 9 a.m. and know he's been awake for hours already) to ask if he had any ideas; he just got back to me with some possibilities so I'll go work on those forms in a minute.

I want to do a quick shopping before Felix comes home from school. I could zoom out, do the shopping, and zoom back (the zooming is all done on my feet of course) and be back here in an hour at the most. I've been thinking about the difference between this and shopping in Bloomington. I also got frustrated there fitting in the shopping, but somehow it was less of a deal, even though I usually figured an hour at least there too, what with driving to Mr. D's and going all around the store, paying, and driving home. There's something about having to put on all the clothes I need for a walk out in the cold - is that what makes it feel more of a hurdle? I don't know, I just know I postpone and postpone and then I think: whoops, can't go now, it's too late and I wouldn't be back before Felix gets home from school.

And one last thing: have I mentioned the fabulous garbage/compost/recycling setup here? In Berkeley last summer we thought it was so cool that you could put our your organic garbage / compost as a separate thing. Well here there's all of that, plus a huge bin for bottles of different colors, plus a huge bin for paper, plus a huge bin for "packaging" which includes plastic and styrofoam and things like that. And then of course, there's regular left-over garbage, but it's amazing how little that ends up being when there are so many other places to put everything else.

Off to work on the financial aid if the passwords get me in. Wish me luck. Tonight is play-reading group, looking forward to it.

what it cost to be out on the town yesterday

9:42 a.m. 2 euros 10 to ride the bus into my 10 a.m. writing group, because my monthly pass only starts at 10 a.m. every day (21 euros cheaper per month; since I go early way fewer than 10 times a month it still makes sense)

10:15 a.m. 1 euro 50 for peppermint tea and a mini brownie (teeny tiny) - I think it was 1.50 - and then I put in maybe 20 cents for a tip

noon maybe 8 euros or 9 euros for soup (green beans with ham pieces or something, which I did not expect), salad (just green, with a balsamic vinaigrette), and a bottle of water (oh, and again I put something in for the tip)

twenty minutes later I can't remember, maybe a euro total, for 3 mini brownies to go

around 1:00 pharmacy, picked up some prescription stuff for a rash, but no money changed hands because I'd paid for it the day before

1:30 1 euro 50 for the peppermint tea I wrote about yesterday, and maybe again 20 or 30 cents for the tip that caused me all the extra trouble with blocking the door while I stood trying to fish out the change and my backpack jutting backwards (this whole episode was just because I wanted to write some postcards and I completely forgot to do them in coffeeshop number 1 where my writing group was, where I stayed and had lunch after the others left - it was so cold and grizzly sleety awful there was no way this could be done outside)

2:00 bought some tickets for sister-in-law and her man to go to the wonderful show hubby and I had gone to two weeks ago (or was it really just a week ago???) - I don't count that though in what it cost to be out and about

2:30-ish 21 euros at a big secondhand store for a poufy purple pair of workout pants and a button-down red skirt (tried on lots of things but only those fit) - I bumped into that store on my way to look for the internet store somebody had sent me to

3:00 1 euro to use the bathroom in the zoo train station - very fancy bathroom set up if I do say so but pricy, called McClean I believe

3:30 2 euros to use the internet at the internet cafe for an hour

4:30 bought Felix some fancy lime green shoes he has to have to wear to gym class at school (he's faked his way through it all year so far but somebody at school laid down the law) - again, I won't count this really in the cost of being downtown, I had to get those for him

5:00 walked home most of the way, talked on the phone to Sabine in the hospital post-knee operation, and briefly to Max if I remember correctly, and left phone messages for Alex and family - hopped on the 29 bus for a few stops along the way and then another ten-minute walk home but no money changed hands because my trusty bus pass worked then - tried to buy a raisin roll but no dice, they were out, so that didn't cost anything - I suppose strictly speaking the phone calls cost something but I wasn't laying out cash so I couldn't say (and come to think of it, the long one, with  Sabine, was on her nickel)

Very nice to be home at the end of the long day out! Somewhere along the way (actually, at the McClean place) I put a ten-euro bill into a wall change machine and got out lots of nice shiny 1- and 2-euro coins, which in turn had many adventures today, but we won't go into that.

Now it's time to run off and hang with the in-laws - my fath'r-in-law is in town for a few days, and I haven't seen the baby and her family for over a week - I'm going to have to stop calling her the baby soon I think she's growing all up.

more shoutouts

and Anja, how could I forget you! Hello dear Anja, my surprise reader.

and Jenny, don't know if you're still along for the ride?

Uncle John, Laurie, are we together here?

Hello all my dearies, thanks for reading. And writing.

Love,

me

two or three shoutouts

hello and love to dear neighbor Susan, still slowly recovering, I hope it's going well. 

hello and love to my sister, I think you read me on the weekends mostly.

hello and love to Alexandra, possibly a new reader?

dear parents, lots of love, much luck with the current challenges.

dear Cynthia and Kim, my dedicated readers and noticers, thank you for reading and commenting!

am I forgetting somebody? Ellen, are you back? Greetings to you all out there. I get confused and I know I'm still very imperfect at this form, but it's been such a help to me working things out, and I appreciate your patience. 

And Sue of course, my dear, my newish reader, I am so looking forward to messing with words with you when I return to Bloomington. 

And Amani, if you're peeking in, hello and good morning.

And to all of you about whom I don't even know you're reading, hello and I'm glad you are reading.

Love

me

what that was all about in the unpleasant cafe . . .

space

taking up space

tininess (cafe division)

lack of tininess (me division)

when I used to weigh 250 pounds and we would come to Germany every couple of years, I got stared at, and I didn't fit into spaces, and it was a huge pain.

now I weigh about 180 or 185 pounds right now (including the 2 kilos I gained in Lisbon) and so while I'm not so huge, I'm really not tiny. But what really doesn't fit into the little spaces here is me plus my big backpack. But if I'm out and about for a day at a time, as I was yesterday, I kind of need the whole backpack to get around and have the things with me I need (I didn't even take the laptop, which is why I had to spend a big chunk of time finding the internet cafe).

but for all the weight I've lost I guess I still take up too much space and it's just not all that much fun hanging out in a place that doesn't allow for that.

in the coffeeshop I go to with my writing group, which spouse o'mine scoffs at as "too American" because they offer bagels and brownies and things like that, I feel very at home for no reason to do with what they serve but because the place is light and airy (so many cafes here are dark, dark, dark) and because there is space, space to move around, space to sit down, space to put a person's backpack. Does this make me an ugly American?