November 3

Today is/was November 3. Tomorrow/Today millions of Americans will go to their respective voting places and vote for the person whom they think will best run the country. today, I woke up extra early after having spent the night drinking beer and watching TV at the local bar with my roommates and drinking beer on the way home and finally when we got home. I woke up with urgency, realizing that I had to take some paperwork to the main office where I work. I awoke, showered, got dressed and went downstairs to drink coffee, check e-mail, etc and print off the papers. The computer I needed to use that was hooked up to the printer was on password protect for the first time since I've lived here. Irony. I did a the NYtimes crossword on the other computer and waited.

The other two roommates woke up, I printed out the papers and sat and read and ate mac and cheese for breakfast. Eggs grow old after eating them day in and day out for breakfast. Jenny asked me if I was okay. I nodded and said yes after she has snapped me out of a trance of staring out the window and wondering why I'm here...typical Monday morning. I'm fine, yeah. Of course. Why wouldn't I be. I finished my breakfast and Brett went to class. I grabbed my keys and left the house without telling Jenny where I was going.

I drove the 10 minutes out to the main office. I drive which I've grown to hate. Droppe off my shit and drove back into town. I stopped at the bank to get about 20 bucks out thinking I could go to goodwill and buy maybe a second new sweater (I've only bought two new articles of clothing since arriving back in the USA. an old sweater and a pair of courdoroys total: $7.00) but after checking my account and realizing not only that I have no money, but that my overdraft is way beyond anything I had estimated, I decided against the luxury of buying new used clothing that poor people have given away. Instead I turned my car back toward the downtown area thinking about the one place where I knew work was guarunteed. The coffee shop has always and will always be a beacon of free easy work. There's nothing that the coffee shop can throw at me that I can't handle. And...desperate times call for desperate measures. I ordered a cup of tea and after dealing with the new employee behind the counter I spoke with a manager...sorta. He was younger than me and told me that the GM was out on maternity leave and that things would be different when she got back. So, I filled out an application listing two of my previous job experiences as being an assistant manager at one of the stores for alomost a year and a normal employee at the store for three years. So I had more experience pushing coffee than the three people working there combined...still, I didn't have a job there and they did. Just sip your tea and find peace you broke bastard.

So, that was that. Pride swallowed, application filled out, hands shaken, tea drank. Off to work. A normal day. No peed or shitted pants, only a few tears shed, doge ball played, etc. Tutoring was a breeze. I helped a Vietnamese girl read a book about a dog that farted a lot. In fact, it was called something like "Walter the Farting Dog." It was a good night. I drove back home and found a letter to me from Leah. I emptied the dishwasher, loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen, took out the trash and recycling, cleaned the living room and made dinner and sat down and read the letter. My first since I've been back in America...3 months.

She made me feel important in her letter. She said that Munich was somehow "our city" that every corner bar or random spot that we walked through was only special because we drank there or walked through that spot. She's so right. I thought about how little time we spent together, but how the little time we did spend together defined everything I'll ever think about that city and how no one else will ever understand about my experience there because they were'nt there on those Sunday nights in the rain or in the could walking through the city looking for that experience, to help us learn German (when all we ever talked to were people from out of the country trying to learn German like us--Italian, Moraccan, Sweidsh, Austrian). But that was our city.

I guess everyone in Munich is waking up and getting ready for work at this time. I know I would be in the shower, trying to catch the 8:20 S-Bahn to Starnberg. If I had it to do again I would have skipped work a lot more and gone to the lake and hung out and napped all day, but I did love hanging out with those kids. Those kids that were 100 times smarter than the kids I work with now. So much more driven and curious. But...I have no regrets. It's all there waiting for me when I go back. A kid asked me today why I where the bracelet that I do (from the Rock Werchter Festival) and I said, well I can't take it off, its stuck and she said, well just cut it off. and I said, I'm not ready too. And she said, you could always get another one. And I said, it's from Belgium (at which point I explaid where Belgium was). And she said, well next summer vacation you could just go back and get another one. At which I replies, it's really expensive to go visit Europe. And she said, well just start saving now. I stared off into the distance imagining the possiblities and the realities of an 11 year olds mind.

Munich is always going to be there waiting for me.