New Sewing Machine, Beautiful Wedding, Wasteland Twinning, Queer Beach

My new sewing machine!

So much to report!  Firstly, I have purcahsed a new sewing machine.  Thank you to my generous donors for making this possible.  It is not as fancy as my trusty old Bernina, but it is also not as heavy and it will do the jobs I need it to do.  I am very happy about this purchase, and though I have not had time yet to give it more than a short test run, I look forward to starting production very, very soon! 

On Thursday Robert was acting weird, insisting that I come over to his house in the evening evening though I had slept there the night before.  "Okay, okay!"  I was annoyed, but it seemed so important to him.  I arrived around 9:30 and a ton of my friends were there!  He threw me a surprise party!  Unbelievable!  I've always hoped someone would do that for me.  No one ever had, until now.  It was a great night of conversation and music.  I was reminded yet again that I am most definitely in the right place in the world. 

I have been walking through my neighborhood lately, and though much of Wedding is highly urbanized, I have to say this place is GORGEOUS!  Right around the corner is a river and verdant greenery, birds and squirrels.  As soon as all the construction on the building is done, I think this will be a positively wonderful place to live.  Though I have liked a few of the places I have lived in Berlin, Soldinerstrasse is my favorite so far. 


 All this is around the corner form my flat. 
Gorgeous!






I auditioned for a part with Wasteland Twinning yesterday and got the role.  Sometime next weekend I will be giving an improvised, interactive endurance performance, playing a character in an urban wasteland on the space behind Köpenicker Straße studios next to Kopi squat, opposite Radialsystem V next to the Spree river.  At the exact same time someone will be giving a performance using the same character sketch in Amsterdam, Holland.  The event will last about 5 hours.  It will be difficult but worthwhile.  At the end of it all, I will sleep for a very long time. I am VERY excited about this bizarre and unique opportunity.

And lastly, it has been HOT in Berlin!  Really hot!  I have been wanting to go swimming in one of the many lakes here in Berlin since I landed, and have not been able to find the time.  Yesterday there was a small party called "Queer Beach" at Müggelsee.  Robert and his friend Tobi and I went in the evening, around 8.  I had only been there about 5 minutes when I decided it was time for a swim.  Though the twilight air was beginning to cool, the water was quite warm.  I tore off all of my clothes and ran in.  How marvelous, to swim naked in a lake while the moon is rising and the sun sets.  Robert joined me and after cavorting in the lake for a bit, we dried ourselves off, joined Tobi on the blanket and ate sausages. 
An excellent evening. 

I'm sorry to say I forgot my camera for both my surprise party (but how was I supposed to know?) and Queer Beach, still, I hope you enjoy the few photos I have included in this blog.


These two photos are total non-sequitors, but I didn't have anywhere else to put them.  Firstly, there is a Yoga room at SFO International?  Oh, San Francisco, would you like soymilk with that?  Also, when you only have 3,30€ in your pocket and are hungry, breakfast at Sharky's Cafe on the corner of Osloerstrasse and Koloniestrasse can't be beat!

 

Mein Nähemaschine ist kaput

My sewing machine busted, and I have to make 30 more of these guys. Help!

I lugged my Bernina sewing machinefrom the US all the way to Germany.  Today I bought a converter plug for it, came home and set it up.  I threaded the machine, put in the bobbin and got ready!  Sewing in my own room!  The feeling of home!  I. Was Excited.
I placed the fabric under the needle and turned on the machine.  I depressed the pedal and began sewing.  But something was wrong.  Tension problems.  Okay, I began futzing with the tension knob.  Tried again. Nothing.  I few more tries.  Still nothing.  Not better.  Not worse.  Nothing.  Then I smell burning.  Then a loud popping sound and smoke. 
Robert called around for me a little bit.  No one will repair it because it is too old.  If I kept searching, I could probably find someone, but the repair would be astronomically expensive.  I have a deadline coming up and tons of sewing to do.  I had just finished setting up a corner of my room like a studio so I could be very productive, unrushed, pay a lot of attention to detail and make good art.  And now I have to buy a new sewing machine.  I didn't really budget for this, but I don't really see any other way that won't drive me insane.  I have an exhibition of my soft sculptures that opens on November 2nd, but need to finish the majority of my work by the last week of September for a publicity photo shoot.

So here is my shameless plea, again, for you to fund my really amazing art.  There is a "Donate" button on this blog connected to my Paypal account.  If you are looking to fund a project in a very concrete way, where you donate the money and it goes DIRECTLY to helping the art get made, look no further.  I don't need that much, as far as art funding goes.  $350 to $400 USD will buy me what I need to crank these sculptures out.  Of course, it takes a village.  I don't expect one person to just shell out the whole thing.  So here's the deal:  You donate more than $50 and I send you a soft sculpture.  You donate more that $100 and you get a soft sculpture and some kind of original, functional fabric item as well.  So, how about it.

Mein Gepäck wurde gefunden!

That's right!  I am waiting for it to be delivered right now!  Truly, I am relieved. 
Geez, it only took 5 days, but now I will be reunited with my Lacie backup drive, my underwear, the majority of my clothing, the rest of my artwork and my camera battery charger!  (I can start taking photos again!  Oh happy day!)

Yesterday I went to Shakespeare im Park, a free performance in Görlitzer Park to see an INCREDIBLY strange production of Utopia by Thomas Moore.  I can only imagine that this is what the Open Theater must have been like.  The production moved throughout the park, pushed gender roles and sexuality to what might be a limit for free, open air theater, and was also, at times, hilarious.  Sorry, I will not write I lengthy review because the buzzer just rang which means MY BAG HAS ARRIVED! 
I now have almost all of my things in one place! 
What's left I will pick up in Prague on August 27th!  Wow, and now, I create my space and begin my life here.  For real!

Baggage Disaster

I've been back in Berlin 4 days.  I understand more German than I thought I would, my flatmates greeted me with a spectacular breakfast, I have gotten to spend a lot of quality time with Robert, and I have obtained a fabulous blue leather couch, which I'm sure I'll post a picture of at some point.  I have hung out with a few of my favorite people in a few of my favorite places and enrolled in an online TESOL course which I hope to complete in under two months, therefore increasing my potential for finding a job while I am learning German.  That's all the good news.
As far as my luggage (i.e, everything I own) goes, this proves to be a stressful disaster.  The first thing that went wrong in with my baggage seems to have happened at SFO, when the person checking me in to my flight did not give me my luggage receipts, making it more difficult to trace my luggage, which was lost.  When I arrived at Tegel and my luggage did not show up, I had to go to the lost and found, where I described my bags.  The woman behind the desk assured me that indeed, I would have my luggage by the next day.  I was given a phone number to call so I could track my luggage, which of course does not work.  Also, the woman at Globe Ground Berlin (the company that handles Air Berlin's baggage) told me I could check my bags status online.  Of course, this website has not been updated for days. 
After 2 days of freaking out, trying to call again and again, I finally went to the airport yesterday.  I talked to a woman at Globe Ground.  She made some phone calls.  "Sorry.  We don't know where it is." 
"Find it."  I am trying very hard to remain friendly, but I'm starting to lose it.  She makes some more phone calls.
"It's here.  You can pick it up now." 
I am by myself at the airport and I am expecting three very heavy bags, only one of which has wheels.  "I was told it would be delivered." 
She makes another phone call.  "You will get your bags today."
So I go back to Robert's and wait for Katha to arrive with the rental van so we can move the couch.  My bags come around 19:45.  But there are only two of them, the large rolling bag with my painted box and some clothes and my new Doc Martins, and my sewing machine case that I had packed books, shoes, and some fabric in.  Lucky I did not check my sewing machine through, as the airline broke my case.  Assholes.  And where is my black duffel bag?  No one knows.  This is the bag containing the majority of my clothes, more fabric, all of my chargers, my electrical converter plug and all my socks and underwear, not to mention a lot of my artwork.  I paid almost $200 to check all of these bags.  And now this one is- who knows?  So I call the toll free American Airlines number from my Skype account, thus making it free.  Of course, since I flew four days ago, they no longer have the tracking numbers which they neglected to give me in the first place.  The extremely unhelpful gentleman on the phone gives my three numbers that might be linked to my lost bag.  Now I get to go back to the horribly unorganized Tegel airport AGAIN and try to find my bag.  Hopefully I will come home with it.  Then Robert and I will go swim naked in a lake, so at least that is nice.
I'm trying to not be materialistic about this, but the fact is that replacing all this stuff would be expensive.  Checking the bag was expensive.  I want my stuff.

Coming Home

It's been about a month since I've posted anything on my blog.  I'm still here on the internet, and for 5 more days I am still in San Francisco.  It has been a busy summer.  I worked for 8 weeks at the Randall Museum summer camp with groups of up to 17 children at a time taking classes like Inventions, where the campers made musical instruments and automatons out of woodscraps and junk, clay monster making, which is exactly what it sounds like, and a class where they wrote and performed their own opera.  Being in kid space all summer was truly wonderful.  Summer camp, otherwise known as getting to play all day, always does something good for my spirit.  One session there was an 8 year old in my group who was (like me) a brain injury survivor.  Quite an outgoing and friendly lad, it brought me a special sense of fulfillment adapting certain activities for him.  It's a really nice thing to wake up at 5:45 in the morning everyday and think "Yes! I'm going to work!"  It's weird that this is probably the last time I work with large groups of kids, at least at the Randall.  I'll miss it.  But I did not move halfway across the world to work with kids.  I did it to explore other avenues.  I did it to get more serious about being an artist.

The Randall Museum is next to Corona Heights Park, whose rockface is made out of Radiolarian Chert

Rescued Barn Owl, Randall Museum

Don't know what it is, but I worked in a beautiful place all summer

Moon Over Randall

Randall Museum

View of Market Street from Randal Museum

Hitomi (Camp Counselor) With Stella the Chicken, Randall Museum

Rosemary Bush, Randall Museum

Rescued Great Horned Owl, Randall Museum

I got paid to make these!  Part of my job at the Randall Museum

I've lived two blocks away from an Asian Supermarket for the past month and a half.  The place is so cheap that the prices are almost Berlin-style.  This had led to several culinary adventures, including the creation of many amazing smoothies, my favorite being either the kale-mint-basil-grape-pear-banana or the strawberry-peach-yogurt.  Also, I discovered Banana sauce, also known as Banana ketchup, which has a TON of sodium in it but goes really well with pork.  And having Ben and Jerry's available for less the 8€ a pint has been- well, I may have gained a little weight, but nothing the constant stair climbing in Berlin won't burn off.

From the Sunset Super, where you can buy frozen alligator feet and live fish

Delivery at the Sunset Super

This past week, I took Violet and Helena, who I started babysitting at the ages of 2 and 5 (they are 6 and 9 now!) to the San Fransisco Zoo.  I think it was the best day I had all summer!  Seriously, those girls are magic.  Unbeknownst to them, over the 4 years I have known them, they have pulled me out of deep depression quite a few times!

Helena, Me, Violet (from right to left)

It's been really spectacular to live by the ocean again as well.  There is something so magical about the Pacific, even if the temperature is similar to the Baltic Sea in winter.  I've enjoyed having sand in between my toes.  I interesting that the home I have found for myself halfway across the world is next to a  moving body of water as well, albeit the much smaller Panke River.
I have sold or given away so many things that have meant something to me.  Books, a jacket I bought when I was 15, my burlesque trunk.  Now, with 5 days left here, I am vacuum packing bags of clothes and fabric, trying to make it all fit in my three bags, carry-on and personal item.  Luggage fees will cost around $225, which is a bummer, but hey, moving is expensive.
Every couple of hours I get overwhelmed and have a small breakdown.  Leaving one home for another, letting go of comfort, a language I know, my legal right to apply for any job I want to, and a sort of stagnation that goes with the immobility I experience in a car-based culture; I'm trading it for discovery, a leap into the unknown, amazing public transit, hustling all the time, and a language I must learn.  Language is maybe the most terrifying part.  The inability to talk to people is hard.  But I will struggle through.  I will work hard and I will learn.  I will be fluent in a few years, I hope.  And the other thing I get when I move back is Robert.  And that alone makes it all worth it.  Still, it's frightening, not having any concrete plans to return to the US.  What if something catastrophic happens to someone in my family, or one of my friends, and I can't afford to come home?  What if, what if, what if.  Fear is never a good adviser.  My mother is still youngish.  Maybe I can get financially comfortable enough in the next few years to come spend quality time with her and her partner when she hits 75 or 80.
So these are all the excited, nervous, happy, sad, scared and courageous thoughts and hopes and dreams that go through my head while I pack and repack my bags over and over again, trying to make it all fit.
Berlin, I'm coming home...

Outer Sunset, San Francisco