This Friday: A sample platter

I am paying a dear price for my levity last week regarding European socialism. My dishwasher has embraced the European view - it has given up its capitalist stance, by which my dinnerware was rendered clean by an invisible hand, adopting instead a Marxist "redistribution of filth" model. From each according to its ickiness, to each according to its stickiness. "German customer service" being a noun phrase on par with "American diplomatic subtlety" - the saying here is "Germany service wasteland" - the repairman will come on Monday, probably, some time between seven o'clock and noon.

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It was originally my intent to post a satire of the horrors of learning German, which continues to perplex me. Upon re-reading Twain's "Awful German Language" for inspiration, though, I came to the swift and unavoidable conclusion that my talents make me just barely worthy to link to his text and that there was really very little to be added. Only this one point; since Twain's encounter with this most baffling of tongues, things have actually gotten worse. The German government has cleverly re-written the spelling rules twice. Grammatical simplification has resulted in the near-demise of the Genetive case in casual speech, but it must still be used in formal speech and writing. And every few months, I have finally figured out, the genders of the words are scrambled about in secret such that I still cannot remember whether a "service" (Dienst) is a boy, a girl, or a thing.

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(Insert third funny story here to establish pattern before breaking pattern with the more serious and introspective denouement. I am trying, but am simply too tired and allergic to come up with anything that would entertain you. Fortunately, now we have Web 2.0, so I can just ask you to generate your own content and then go to bed.)

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There is a famous Robert Heinlein quote to the effect that "specialization is for insects." I find a deep inspiration in the image of the Renaissance Man, versed in philosophy and physics, fencing and rhetoric, theology and astronomy. I have a veritable menagerie of projects that come and go, but at the moment I am dancing with Roswitha, reading a manga series, memorizing the locations of Japan's 46 prefectures, learning two new piano pieces, playing Go, singing bass in the church choir, planning a wedding ceremony, writing this blog, and working full time as a kind of side project. One of my new co-workers is a triathlete, and the triathlon occupies his full interest outside of work. I don't understand that, to be sure, but sometimes the invigoration I feel at always having so many exciting things to learn and do gives way to the feeling of being butter spread over too much toast. This week is very much such a time - two business trips have combined with a bad case of hay-fever to leave me craving my pillow with an intensity that I can no longer resist. I wish you all a good weekend!