today it is raining for the first time in over a month and the breeze coming through my window can accurately be described as freezing. theres nothing to aid in your heart's homesick depression like post-war german novels about guilt and repression of feeling from the 50s and 60s. there's no remedy like a cup of chai from home and playing with the dog in the park until it starts to pour.

i have been listening to the mountain goats nonstop for a few weeks now, which like any of my favorite artists, their long and varied catalogue lends itself to. there are times when listening to melancholy music can make you feel even more melancholy and then there are times when it acts as a close friend who sits with you and eats junk food and, while not making you laugh or forget about anything, manages to lift your spirit and console you. i am by no means the first person to think or say any of this, and this isn't a music blog by any stretch of the imagination, but the combination of john darneille's elementary-school guitar style, plaintive nasal-wail-type voice and über-literary lyrics are a recipe for some of my favorite music of all time. add to that the fact that there is something within these albums, especially "all hail west texas" "get lonely" and "the sunset tree" that feels inherently american to me, like the capstan shafts or samamidon or even certain bright eyes songs. it causes a new kind of homesickness to surface within me, for a place i've never even really been. for something intangibly "out west", from texas or nebraska or oregon; kerouac-ian highways and desolate suburban streets with ranch-style houses with angsty 16 year olds playing music in the basements. i know its a silly thing to think about, because listening to crap like taking back sunday or the june spirit or even blood brothers call forth memories of home for me, but they call forth memories of my high school adolescence and driving on new jersey highways and drinking on playgrounds and sitting in rittenhouse square or walking up and down haddon ave. the mountain goats don't so much represent a time period in my life or a specific place as an idea of "home" and "america" that might even be more valuable to me being so far away.

this week has been the euro-cup 2008, or as the germans call it, the euro-meisterschaft. germany's performance last night against croatia was nothing less than embarrassing and you can feel the bad mood pervading everyone's spirit. it was practically tangible on the tram and train last night traveling across town. the day before yesterday i went on my second real date since i've been in this city, and it was really lovely. it's strange how sharing something as trivial as a favorite obscure band with a person can trick your heart into feeling like you share some deeper connection. i consider myself a rational person, and i'm not trying to say that i'm ready to marry someone who happens to like yo la tengo and pavement, but after months of being confronted with cultural incompatibility, its enough to make you text someone back. there is more to the connection than that, including shared interest in silent films, modern art and literature, politics and speaking a few of the same languages, and i'm not trying to jump into some epic romeo and juliet-esque long distance impossible relationship, its just nice to meet someone interesting to do fun things with without some uncomfortable subtext.

today my goals are to finish at least half of this novel for monday, write at least two pages for my first hausarbeit, and try once again to attack the permanent state of mess that my apartment lives in. in a recent telephone conversation with my mother, i compared trying to keep my living space tidy with shaving my armpits - it is so inherently futile because within days (and by days i mean hours, for both), everything goes back to how it was. its one of the smartest (and maybe grossest) analogies i've ever made. but knowing me its probably not the grossest.