charlottesville and friendship.

A welcomed cold spell blessed the first day of the fall semester. I woke up at seven, ate an American box cereal breakfast and read a hundred lines of Homer. Last night on the phone with Caroline I expressed some dismay at getting through his 48 books by the end of the year. "Wait, 48?!!" she said. "What are the other 46?" I'm glad we are friends. No one makes me laugh so hard. That's not hyperbole.

I biked to the spectacle shop to drop off my prescription and order new lenses before going to school. Hopefully I will be able to read accent marks by Friday. The UVA campus wasn't at all as dreadful as promised. Maybe the cold turn in the weather had something to do with that, curbing the influx of orange cheerleading shorts and flipflops. The students seemed rather reserved. Many of them were talking about church and god. Some of them were speaking French.

I like that time period just after you have relocated. When you don't know anyone, and no one knows you, and you can just wander around wondering. That's more or less what I have been doing the past couple of weeks. Well, and reading. But that moment is passed. Now I feel fairly well acquainted with the students and faculty in my department and many in philosophy, with whom we share a building, and a long standing kickball rivalry.

Laura got into town a couple of days ago. She is writing a mystery novel and a will. I am to inherit 2.5 percent of the estate. I promised that if she died, I would use the money to jumpstart my own mystery series. I'm glad I have a friend here. It's so much more work to make friends than to have them.

Summer, 2010

Wow, a lot has happened in the past few months. I went back to France and visited more prehistoric caves (in the Pyrennes this time). These were in general a bit younger than those in Dordogne. What was especially striking was how in these caves the artists had sought out rooms with the best acoustics (even when that meant a multi kilometer hike from the cave's entrance). These rooms transformed the weak voice of the archeologist giving the tour into a haunting cry. I can't imagine how a real singer would sound here.

I had trouble getting back to Vienna. Airport strikes in Paris. So I stayed with my friend Arnaud and his cousin in their charming little apartment not far from Place de la Republique. We made lots of dinners and to one of them came their aunt, who called me a dirty colonialist.

I found Vienna as I had left her, rather chilly, full of Italian ice-cream and Viennese. I saw the crown jewels and the imperial vault; I went to the clock museum with Richard and the opera house with Laura. My last night there I had drinks on the University campus with Michael, Mario, et al. Maybe it was exhaustion or anxiety but for no apparent reason tears started streaming down my face. My expression didn't change, just the tears. It might very well have gone unnoticed if I hadn't been directly engaging Mario in conversation (we were talking about his trip to the Alps, natürlich). So, he noticed, but wasn't sure because my expression hadn't changed. And I didn't want my expression to change because it's stupid to cry for no reason. He touched my shoulder, and I started really crying, so I got up quickly and said an embarrassed auf wiedersehen to those present and walked quickly back towards Michael's house, sobbing the entire way.

We stopped at a vernissage because the man in charge knew Michael and called out to us passing. Polish women, two sisters, had painted undefined female characters and superimposed them onto artificial backgrounds. The artists were there, laughing exclusively and drinking wine at a corner table, looking as disconnected as their subjects. Stress or anxiety must work in Memory's favor. After all those wunderschoen paintings and sculptures I saw during my time in Vienna, what I remember most vividly today are those rather unexceptional paintings in that tiny cafe off of Alserstraße rendered striking by the swollen globes through which I saw them.

I left Europe and moved to Virginia. I got here about a week ago. I'm glad to be here. I am really grateful to have this chance to continue studying. I took a bunch of exams yesterday. They were hard, but I think I did alright. I haven't formed my opinions yet on the place. But I will soon and when I do, I will tell you all about it.