Date: Nov 1, 2006 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: Orange Tinted Wiener
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Dear Nick,

Its 0 degrees here. Tanning, for me, only occurs in cramped sonnenstudios with other orange-tinted Wieners. *

*Cut this sentence out and paste it, by itself, into a word document, Then read it, it’s nice and creepy.

We call this out of context, a phenomenon that can, in large measure, sum up my and I guess your existence at the moment. Unfortunately, my metaphorical vehicle to deliver us through the following discourse on outsiderness and expatriata, is the Orange-Tinted Wiener…or Fortunately…I’ll let you decide.

Yes, Mr. Cooke. Out of context.

A phenomenon that happens cutely, as it did previously when I asked the old Wiener if he could watch me poop. Or not so cutely, like for example, when, I learned the hard way men pee sitting down in Austria when they live in all-girl’s apartment. “Surely you’re joking girls, ” I said. They respond, germanly, “no.” I conformed for a few weeks, until one dark afternoon, a bit drunk and hyper from the lingering bender I’d been on the night before, by peeing, standing up with the door open, pants at my ankles, singing the star-spangled banner at full volume…This was perceived as blatant disrespect, which it most certainly was, but in my defense, disrespect in the context of a childish behavior, which makes it more fun I think. This solitary act of rebellion launched one of Sonja’s roommates into a dissection of my character, “bad”, and within 24 hours i packed my things and moved to my new home, Wombat’s, the hostel, where I’m writing you this email.

This last month has been a stressful one. Finding work, an apartment, sorting out my Visa..experiences which are sucky in the English speaking world, but become extra sucky done in a foreign language. Expereinces we can hopefully get together someday and bitch about the way crusty old men complain about sucky things. In addition to the external suck, things in Sonja’s place had a bit of suck as well. She can’t afford much and agreed to live in the dining room of her friend’s apartment, stating that she’d build a wall…a verbal contract which, in small print read, “Shaan will build wall for me”. Well, we never did..and as such, I was basically living in the middle of an apartment filled with 21 year old german girls*
* Stay up late, never shut the light off, libertarian, beer drinking, having random boys over, loud talking girls.

As such, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month, until I got here to my dorm bed in a hostel, which in contrast is much quieter, and a “dream” (chucklechucklechuckle) to sleep in.

Note: they’re playing 99 Luftballoons, in German, right now.

In addition, spatially, sex was impossible. Shower sex was going great until one of the Zee Germans, complained about that too. In addition, the shower goes cold after five minutes, which is ok when having sex, warm body theory, but when masturbating impossible to concentrate. Anyway, I haven’t had an orgasm in two weeks and was hitting on a trashcan yesterday.

This will all of course change on Wednesday when I move into my own apartment, with Rita and Olaf, yes, I live with a guy named Olaf, who is suprisingly cool (Boy Named Sue Theory, is my guess, or in Austria being named Olaf may not be that bad, not sure which).

Apparently, Sonja never asked if it was “OK” if I stay at her place, just assumed it would be, and after living there for a month, getting on my feet, etc… Tensions reached Cold War levels with her roomies, all done without my knowledge, until I got fed up with all of it and just left. Sonja and I will be ok, just need space. I’ve never lived with a girlfriend before, and never want to. I like having my manspace. That being said, I’ve learned some interesting things in the last month.

1) i haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month, however, I am capable of some mind-numbingly productive things on four hours sleep..adrenaline dude, who knew?
2) i weigh about 165 pounds, largely because of the adrenaline, and the fact that I’m never hungry here, oh yeah and I smoke alot, thanks alot Spain. However, I have managed to develop a six pack, fuck exercise America: stress, german, beer, no sleep, ciggarettes, shower sex…these are the keys to a trim physique…not the most sustainable approach, I’ve probably neatly trimmed a month off of the end of my life, but in this pending apocolyptic/globally warmed world we’re soon to be living in, who gives a shit..we’re all going down. See, I’ve only been here a month and I’ve even managed to adopt German sensibility..Life is Scheisse: we die, thus: smoke, drink,its cold outside, self-destruct, but look good doing it.
3) English is a handy language to be a native speaker of. Its kindof like, but nowhere near as cool as being six foot seven, being black and having a killer jump shot…ie, skills you never really had to work too hard to cultivate, but you get paid quite well for these skills. I never had much of a jump shot, but I can sure talk alot. This, and my CELTA certificate, apparently, scored me a business english teaching job paying 35 euro an hour..not bad for this little ninja..I’m sort of on probation right now, but If I prove myslef I should get more than my one, two-hour, lesson a week, in a month or so and make really good money.
4) German is nowhere near as much fun to speak or to learn as Spanish, and speaking it actually makes you feel german: direkt, logical, unfunny..german…but, its sort of my new challenge, if I can mitigate the narrow, uncharted paths of german wit and wittiness, i can do anything…that being said, its a a bitch of a language to learn..I scored at an intermediate level in my language school entrance exam, a huge mistake…this is the section of the german teaching curriculum where you learn and apply what makes germans so german..the ins and outs of german grammar..did you know they have 24 words for the English word, “the”. This all of course depends on the sex of the word you are referring to, if its the direct, indirect object, or the subject, if the object is a pronoun in possession of the direkt objekt, etc.., etc…Yeah, its rough.
5) My German class is all the people who applied to the University of Vienna, but don’t speak good enough German to attend classes, thus we have one year to learn and apply academic german. My class consists of people from Chechnya, Bosnia, every North African country you never knew existed, Iran, Russia, every ex-Russian sattelite country you forgot about, and me, the only American to take this course, to quote Marta, my German teacher, in her twenty years of teaching it. Most Americans who elect to study at the university of Vienna don’t take the time to learn German they just take the classes taught in English..this either makes me very stupid, or very original…again, a fine line to walk…I’ve been in for a week, and already behind.
6) Moving to a far off country because of love sounds nice on paper, but is way harder and challenging than staying at home and meeting a nice girl from the suburbs.
In all, suprisingly happy here. Vienna is beautiful, cold, but jaw-droppingly beautiful at times. I’m making friends, and getting the language down. Things are good with the girl, a bumpy road at first, but we’ll be better for it. I miss Sevilla, more than you can imagine, and would love to get back there and kick it with ya’ll. What neighborhood is your place, hows the teaching going, hanging with any of the old schoolers?

Keep it real and shit

Shaan