Don't like the weather?

Just wait five minutes, and it'll change!

Must be a slow blog day if I'm reduced to whinging about the weather, eh? Last weekend it was horrendously hot and steamy here. At least for me it was. My comfort zone tops out at about 26C, although I can tolerate pretty darned cold with no problems. But it was close to 30 last weekend and no breezes, nothing.

Now, though, is a completely different story. The last three days at least have been alternately raining, anything from a light drizzle to "can't see across the parking lot" downpours, hailing trying to change to freezing rain or snow (and the next town uphill from here got snow yesterday!), to bright sun, and back through the rain again. With quite a good wind going most of the time. I think it was supposed to get up to about 12C today.

Yes, I know, spring is a very changeable time, but this changeable?

Currently reading: Red Rabbit, Tom Clancy. Again. I think this is about the third or fourth time.
Currently hearing: nothing. Didn't turn iTunes on tonight, shame on me.
Cat activity: Sophie, sitting in the hall and trying to convince me to give her smoked salmon. Charl, turning himself inside out on the ironing board. He hasn't tipped it over yet...
NaNoNonsense status: still where it was the last time I reported here. I am seriously starting to hear the clock ticking in my head. Argh!

Just in case you don't know what NaNo is, it's for all of us (and you know who you are!) who have always said "Someday I'll write a novel". Well, someday is here! Sharpen your pencils, make sure there's ink in your fountain pen, get all the cat hairs off the keyboard, and as the clock strikes midnight on the first of November, sit down and WRITE! The goal is 50,000 words by the time the clock strikes midnight on the last day of November. Can't write outside November and have it count. NaNo is short for NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org), which in turn is short for National Novel Writing Month. Which is short for "it's already the 20th of November and I only have 10,000 words done and the in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving and the house is a mess and the kids just..." etc. Man, am I glad I don't have in-laws and I don't celebrate Thanksgiving.

If (hah! There's no one reading this, let alone reading my NNN at fictionpress.com) you're reading my NNN, don't get too attached to a lot of the characters. I'll warn you right now, several of them are marked for death. But their deaths will serve a purpose.

So where are you from?

Five little words that turn me from an articulate professional -- and believe me I can babble with the best of them -- to a stammering idiot. "So where are you from?" is always the question that comes up with new acquaintances here in Europe, no matter their nationality.

Why is it such a hard question? Because I'm not sure how to answer it.

I was born in Maryland; does that mean I'm from Maryland? My parents and I moved when I was five, so I only have very vague memories of my friends and our home. While I've visited Baltimore a couple times since then, I don't consider myself a Maryland native.

We lived in Oregon for about 5 years, then I spent my teenage years in Reno. Does that mean I'm a Nevadan? Well, no, not in my opinion. It's been 17 years since I was there. I spent 10 years at Michigan State University doing 3 degrees, but I can't see myself as a Michigander, either. My parents moved to upstate New York while I was in undergrad, and now live about 60 miles from where my mother lived until she was 18. I think she would consider herself a New Yorker, but I don't see myself as one. I lived with them for a few years while I finished off my dissertation, but I'm not a New Yorker.

I lived in Rhode Island for about 18 months, but I'm definitely not from there! It was a great place, and I really enjoyed it, but I'm not a Yankee at heart. Then I moved to North Carolina, but only for 6 months. I didn't even finish unpacking! Although I loved North Carolina and made lots of friends both at work and outside of it, I'm not from there.

I cherish the semi-nomadic lifestyle I seem to have had, even if it keeps me from defining where I'm from. For one thing, I've lived in more parts of the US than a lot of my friends and colleagues even in the States have ever seen. I've gotten used to moving, used to the disruption to routines, to the need to find new doctors and dentists and veterinarians, new routes to wherever, new stores, and everything else that goes with it. Not to say I look forward to it, but I know what it's all about.

And I think it has made my integration into Europe much easier. I was startled when my boss in North Carolina suggested I might do a short expatriation in France, but not afraid. OK, well, I wasn't afraid until my mother drove me to the airport and dropped me off, facing a flight to New York JFK and then one to Nice. Then the fear started! But really, what's one more move? It was just a little bit farther than most and there was that little issue of the language barrier, that was all.

But where am I from? Language and dialect are perhaps one of the things that define our identity the most, but with me it's hard to pin down. Casual observers continually hear me speaking French, German, or even English, and unless they are native English speakers they decide that I must be from the UK. I met a very nice couple from Tasmania once who, on hearing me speak English, thought I must have been born in France. After my first six weeks in Michigan for university, I had people convinced I was from the UP, eh. Although I never picked up the Yankee whatever, a short time in North Carolina had me speaking like the locals.

Even though my passport says "United States of America", sometimes I have to wonder if I'm really American any more. Not to go into politics too far, but now that I have lived here in Europe for nearly six years, I find myself going more and more in a different direction than that in which my birth country is going. Maybe it's a temporary thing, maybe not, but it certainly won't be obvious which of those is true for a long time. Once something as large as the US starts going in a certain direction, it's hard to turn it around quickly. But am I a European?

So, where are you from?

Oh Happy Day!

Why so happy? Well, I've been on an expatriate contract to up here in semi-Northern Germany for nearly 2 years now. It's not been the best experience in my life, although it's been very useful and I'm exceedingly glad that I did this.

But, the topic of my return to the south of France has started coming up in discussions with my management a lot recently, and we finally started actually discussing concrete dates. Yeehah! OK, it's not until November, but that's not all that far off.

As an American, I've really had a good chance to see both the French and the German cultures up close. In France, at least down south, there is a very large expat population, although there are more Brits than Americans. But I lucked into a sweet little house out in the country a little bit where few people have any English at all, which really helped with my immersion into both the language and the culture. Didn't have any French at all when I got there, other than about 30 hours before I moved and 60 hours afterwards.

Here in Germany, I made a conscious decision *not* to live in the expat "ghetto" not far from where I actually live, but instead chose a building where everyone else is German. Good for the language, but it also gets me into the German culture and away from the sniping, whining, and totally different concerns of the trailing spouse (and face it, here in Germany they're nearly always wives who are trailing. Very rarely does the husband follow his wife to an expat spot in Germany.) that would do nothing but drag me down.

End conclusion? Boy, are the two cultures different! Yes, there are neat French and slobby Germans, but really the nationalities are different. Here in Germany it seems like appearance is everything, especially as far as a flash car and a spotless home. Clothes, though, don't catch as much attention, especially not from men. Tip for German men: Look, guys, you've got on a nice black, dark blue, or gray suit. Shirt coordinates with the suit, tie goes well with it, you're looking sharp. Think about this... why should your shoes be in a totally different color family??? If you're gonna wear something black/blue/gray, wear black shoes. Please? And the reverse is of course true; if you wear a brown suit, that's when you wear the brown shoes. I don't *care* how snazzy, sharp, or otherwise attractive your Italian leather shoes are, and I have to admit I've seen some darned nice shoes up here in Germany, if they're brown you *don't* wear them with your black suit. OK, getting off my soapbox now!

Where the heck did that come from? Dunno. Anyway... in France, while nice cars are appreciated, they're not as important, and the car is seen more as "it gets me from A to B" rather than a museum piece to be kept spotless and dentless at all times. Homes, apart from the monstrosities that the nouveau riche build along the coast, are a little bit less than perfect, and of course there's the, um, dog-litter problem. Clothes, of course, are a big deal in France.

The French, at least on the Riviera, seem to spend an awful lot of time dealing with food and drink. Well, who wouldn't? But getting to work at 9, going for a coffee break at 1030, spending 12 to 130 over lunch, and then leaving at about 5 are par for the course in France. Here in Germany, in to work by 8, no coffee break, 30 minutes for lunch, and leave by maybe 6 is how it goes in this area. But the French side of the company does pretty darned well. And it might be because in our French office, it's quite frequently a sunny day and there is a terrace with tables, chairs, and umbrellas, while in Germany it's usually raining.

But hey, my time in Germany *has* been useful. I know better now how the heck this company works, I know a whole lot more people now, and all the German I learned in school has come back to me. Now I can get confused in three languages!

I hate moving, though. If only I could go to sleep one night in Germany, have the moving elves come in overnight and pick it all up, and then wake up the next day in France, I'd be happy. You'd think I'd be used to it, this is the 11th time in my life I've moved, and the 5th time since 1998, but I hate it. I procrastinate, and it gets worse and worse with every move. Oh well, if I want to go back to France, I've got to get through it, eh? And November ain't that far away. Guess maybe I ought to start working on some stuff now...

Currently reading: Trace, Patricia Cornwell. Why do I keep reading her stuff? She used to be good, but this present-tense stuff she writes now kills me.
Currently hearing: Grace and Pride, Capercaillie. Some of their old stuff, I think, but not bad.
Cat activity: sleeping. What did you expect? They're cats.
NaNoNonsense status: still no more typed or scrawled. Gotta get back at that. My "2005 writing goals" are to have finished that and started editing it, start the 2005 NaNoNonsense in November, and to write 3 short stores and submit them *somewhere*. Right, where's my pen?