Another blog post, just under the wire...

Third blog post since deleting twitter from my phone on Sunday morning... hmmm... 

Anyway, I'll try to make this one a bit less angsty than the last few, but that is kind of just how I've been feeling. Today there's something new, though. I am feeling a little bit insane. At one point today I could feel my brain melting and expanding against my skull, threatening to break through and ooze out of my ears. I'm not even kidding. I don't think people were meant to sit at a computer all day (though here I am, at a computer again) and I have a theory that I am one of the most extreme cases of not being meant to sit at a computer all day. Or maybe that's just because we're all trying to hide from one another how utterly insane it makes us feel. 

There's another strike on Friday from 3am until 10am and it's going to make me late to work, so I'm going in early tomorrow and will work nine hours. I really truly think it might make me go insane. I am going to take a shower now and then go for a walk and then I am going to come back and look up everybody you listed in your post from yesterday and take a good, long look at their artwork. I think I need to walk more. I'm feeling inspired by your five mile Wednesdays. 

Re: your rejection from the exhibition, I'm sorry to hear that! I do think outside motivation is necessary sometimes, as much as we'd like to imagine we should be able to operate in a vacuum. 

Re: scents, I have been on the search for something that will make me smell like the idea of what you'd smell like after working in a garden all day long. I know the reality well, having worked as a gardener, and it's mostly just stinky and sweaty, but I'd like something that's herbal and floral and a touch mulchy and smells like the sun is beating down on you. Do you know of anything? Also, if you do end up launching a brand, I would like to be one of your first customers. 

I think I need to really get to work thinking about my career because there is no world in which I can just keep on sitting at a desk for the rest of my life. I am considering gardening again or going to school for horticulture or maybe becoming a bicycle mechanic (I, who cannot change a bike tire) or maybe becoming a massage therapist. Regardless, I would like to minimize time spent sitting at a desk in front of a computer. Admittedly, though, I am hoping this insanity is only temporary and that I am just settling in and that soon I will feel normal about work. I do doubt it, though... 

If a tree falls in a forest and only I am there to hear it, does it make a sound?

I'm not entirely sure this is universal but I do imagine I'm not alone in this and that it's actually quite a bit more common than I'd think it is. So much of the time I spend alone I feel as though I don't quite exist. Unless I'm doing something Big. A Saturday walking around town and running errands or a Monday evening spent cleaning up and showering and preparing for the week are just black holes. I didn't "do" anything with them, I have no proof that anything even happened at all, other than the stocked fridge or the clothes back on their hangers. If I make something or I really do something (a hike, perhaps) I feel like the time actually passed in a meaningful way. Not in the sense that I find those things meaningful, which I do, but in the sense that every minute was put toward something. Sometimes, it can be shocking to be out running errands and look down at your watch and see that hours have gone by and all you've done is bought one book, tried to come up with a good grocery list, and found out that the art supply store you wanted to go to is closed for renovations. Why do things happen the way they do?

I deleted twitter from my phone yesterday morning. We'll see how long that lasts. Before you ask, yes I did still check in the evening yesterday from my laptop. And tonight, too. I've been told that's harm reduction. 

Maybe continuing to exist when nobody else is around is one of the more difficult things I'll have to learn to do in my 20s.

There's a strike and I'm making friends and I was on my period.

I guess it's what it sounds like. There was a rail strike which meant I took the earliest possible trains to and from the town in northern Germany where my friend whose birthday it was lives. That also coincided with a protest, which was kind of fun. I basically stepped out of the train station and into a huge crowd (I think the estimate was ten thousand?) of people protesting against the far right political party here in Germany. The birthday party was lovely but I was pooped from my day of travel and fell asleep on the sofa. Oops. 

I've begun making friends in Berlin a little bit. One is a coworker and three are friends of friends. I've yet to meet somebody, like, truly organically here. I guess the coworker is organic but she started a week after I did so we we're brand new together. One of the new friends is sort of a soulmate person. I've only met her twice but I have this strong sense of kinship toward her right off the bat and I'm hoping it leads somewhere beautiful (platonically). I think we'll see one another this week. She just had a pretty major surgery and so I'll go over there with some flowers and snacks and see if there's anything else I can do to support her. 

This past week was rough because a boy I've been in sort of constant contact with for about a month lost interest in me and kind of went AWOL at exactly the same time that my period started. Oh well. Neither the former nor the latter was much of a surprise. My period came when it was supposed to and, well, I knew that would happen with the boy sooner or later. What can you do? Back to the drawing board, I suppose. That or try to be a little less obsessed with romance. It feels sometimes like it's the only thing I think about. 

Have you ever become convinced one of your friends might be your soulmate?

I don't know. It sounds kind of silly. There are a select few people I can really truly picture a life with. Not because I'm in love with them, necessarily, but because I know we love one one another so much and are such committed people that if we decided to be together we could absolutely be happy together, simply because we've put our minds to it. I think there are two people I see that going even further with, to be that like in some universe, on some level, we are perfect partners for one another. And one of those people I really truly think I could fall madly, deeply, passionately, all-consumingly, from this life into the next in love with if given a chance. I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing about it because it doesn't really change anything about anything. I don't want to be in a relationship with him (I mean in like a distant, hypothetical way I sort of do but not in any real way) and we don't live in the same country and we don't even talk very often and he is dating somebody and I, though I am not dating anybody, always sort of have somebody occupying my thoughts. I think if we ever kiss I will see god.

First post from my new place!

I've moved! I'm in Berlin now! I wasn't going to post where I am on here at first, but I decided today there are definitely enough Charlottes in Berlin that it really truly is fine if I share that. Plus, I don't actually think any random person is going to find my blog and decide to stalk me. Anyway, I'm in Berlin. I've moved into my apartment (huuuge bedroom, kind of chilly, tall ceilings, in a cool part of town). The apartment has four bedrooms and soon there will be four of us living here, but I've only met one of my roommates so far. 

I haven't made any new friends yet, but the last two days I've seen K, the girlfriend of the best friend of my penpal N, whom I'd never met before December, and her friend G. They met through their masters program. They're very nice and when we spend time together it's been very laid back and comfortable. I don't feel very alone at all, knowing I've got them. I'm getting settled.

Today, I've got to work on learning a software I exaggerated my abilities with during my job interview (oops) and I think I may go to a flea market or two, if they're open, and see if I can find a few little things I need. A butter dish, some sort of jewelry stand, a dish to keep odds and ends. I thought I would have more time yesterday, but I didn't. I was going to buy some books, but that will just have to wait until sometime this week. I mostly just went to the grocery store (once before eating, during what seemed to be a grocery rush, without a list, and once again after eating, during a quieter time, with a list) and sat in my room and talked on the phone. 

As mentioned before, my apartment is kind of chilly. It's a bit below freezing today and it's a Sunday and I have my radiators turned all the way up, but that's no match for the size of my room and my enormous windows, so I'm wearing a cashmere pullover and a camelhair cardigan and have a blanket over my lap. It's difficult to motivate myself to venture outside to go to the flea markets... I'm not entirely sure I'll be leaving my apartment today. I had originally thought I'd go for a walk today. Maybe I need to change out of my wool tights and denim skirt and into my warm wool pants. That might be necessary for a walk. Maybe I should make some tea first. Maybe I'll take a bath later.

I'm a little bit sleepy...

I start work tomorrow.