an email

any ungulate will do

February 28 / New York City

~he wrote~

hello Rachel,
did you make it back to the u.s.a. or are you still wandering in scandinavia?
i have an image of you quitting the city life and living as a deer herder.
tell me i’m correct!

~i wrote~

Nigel my old friend! from the train of all trains
guess what? You’re weirdly correct, albeit by a certain stretch of figurativity:
i did get on my flight back to new york, and then i sat at home moping for a couple of days, and then i bought a one-way ticket to copenhagen.
i leave in may, and what i’m reading so far makes me think that denmark may not be the place to try to find work right out of the gate, so the new plan is to wander a little through europe and stop wherever i find gainful employment and a sense of home. do you know anyone who’s hiring herders? doesn’t have to be deer; any ungulate will do.

this episode was written...

into	an email
with	Nigel
from	the US of America
on	anticipation + employment + transit + ungulates

any ungulate will do Read More »

watch battery on a sunday

May 27 / Berlin

~ i wrote ~

Where here can I get a new watch battery on a Sunday, when in this Christian god-adhering nation things are all closed?

I’ve begun making my immediately-post-Berlin plans but they’re all wrong, topographically speaking — way, way too much overland shenanigans as I shuttle between Cologne or Stuttgart and back to Berlin again and Cracow and Vienna and/or Prague and Paris, from where I’ll go to Bucharest indefinitely — must cease shenaniganning, find water, and stars, and stay.

My watch stopped yesterday, which for someone who likes to know the time and gravitates toward the analog and lives for unsettling metaphors is almost too much to bear.

this episode was written...

into	an email
with	Manuel
from	Germany
on	business + commerce + geography + metaphor + movement + planning + religion + technology + time + travel

watch battery on a sunday Read More »

I’m finding Berlin all right

June 1 / Berlin

~ i wrote ~

I’m finding Berlin all right. Like New York, but cheaper, by half at least and sometimes more, and softer, too, easier, with wider streets and narrower personalities, more consonants and less genetic diversity.

this episode was written...

into	an email
with	Birdie
from	Germany
on	adjustment + cityscape + comparative geography

I’m finding Berlin all right Read More »

I’d arrived at the uncool hour

June 2 / Berlin

~ i wrote ~

Outside Berghain — I’d arrived at the uncool hour of half-past midnight, as instructed by savvy locals — I joined the growing queue and tried to be cool about getting in, as instructed by same, until someone let me know that I was in the line for men, and I was escorted right through a side door designated for the lady-identified and waited no minutes at all be body-searched by a very tall non-binary German who did not think I was cute or interesting.

this episode was written...

into	an email
with	Birdie
from	Germany
on	body + club + gender + safety + searching + waiting

I’d arrived at the uncool hour Read More »

I’d forgotten ear plugs

June 2 / Berlin

~ i wrote ~

For all my careful clubbing planning I’d forgotten ear plugs and had no you with me, carrying spare, so the first thing I did once inside was find an existing rip in the upholstery on some upper-level lounging furniture and help myself to some stuffing to upcycle for my ears and guard against the techno throb.

this episode was written...

into	an email
with	Red
from	Germany
on	club + earplugs + furniture + resource + vandalism

I’d forgotten ear plugs Read More »