Next I'll break out my Huey Lewis cassettes

My thumb hurts.

Perhaps I should explain.

In 1980, the video game craze that hit my hometown took it's toll: quarters were badgered out of mom and dad's pocket and the arcade was THE hangout until well into my senior year in high school.

The favorites were Gauntlet, a dungeons-and-dragons themed game which could be played for hours once you were super-powered; 1942, a WWII flying shoot-em-up; and my personal favorite, Galaga, which is a way better version of Space Invaders.

So how does this affect me now? Well, mom shipped me a small handheld joystick last week. It plugs into the AV port of our television and voila! I can choose from the original arcade versions of Galaga, Ms. Pac Man, Pole Position, Xevious, and Mappy.

Yes, it's old school.

Yes, the games are graphically simple.

But they're still challenging, especially since my reflexes have dulled a bit since I was 12.

Shooting Galagians has become my favorite winter pastime, much to the dismay of my wife.

I reached level 25 yesterday after playing for an hour straight.

Which is why my thumb hurts.

Dreams

An intriguing characteristic of my dreams is that of location. Traveling back to America for extended stays has allowed me to realize that I tend to dream of Europe during the first weeks of our American journeys. And then, upon returning to Europe, I dream of America for the first weeks in what I guess is a sort of dream inertia.

But for the past five nights (we returned to Germany a week ago) I haven't been dreaming about any specific geographic location.

Instead, my dreams have been taking place on the internet.

I suppose it's because setting up my website and blogspot has occupied most of my time lately, but it's still unnerving to dream of being inside one's computer or inside the computers of others, and especially of not being able to find one's way out.

A modern day Tron, that's me.

I know that polyglots often dream in foreign languages, and we're all guilty of dreaming about our work, but I can't help thinking that I've spent too much time plugged in lately.

This is a picture of the Saale River running high.

Tuesday, February 16, 2005

Back to Europe

The third consecutive night of insomnia behind me, I shuffled, feeling heavy all over, into the bathroom. The skylight dimly lit my puffy eyes in the mirror and Jarmila made fun of my bedhead, so I kissed her without brushing.

We had taken the red-eye from New York to Prague four days earlier, and Jarmila slept way more than me on the plane. (I don't know how she can do it – being able to reach out and touch strangers is enough to keep me awake, let alone all the jet noises.) Anyway, she was doing much better than me, but we still hadn't accommodated ourselves to the six additional hours of GMT +1.

The first day back (a Friday) in the Czech Republic, I was a literal zombie. Not only was there the usual language barrier, but being exhausted, I didn't even care to try. I napped in the living room, distractedly opening my eyes for short intervals, and read and drank beer when I woke up enough. I also tried to ignore Jarmila's suggestions of taking a walk in the snowy February landscape, but it didn't work: we went outside with kids and dog, and even the joy of having a lovely 4-year old frolicking around wasn't enough to penetrate my lethargy.

That night I went to bed at 21:00 and woke up next morning at 10. Thirteen hours! Yum.

Jarmila also slept most of the night. In the morning she pronounced herself "adjusted" and claimed that it was her "intention to adjust" that had done it.

We left for Germany Saturday afternoon with our fully-loaded car, minus Jarmila's most important bag, which the airline had lost.

Coffee helped the drive along, but it was still a shock. Every day of the previous month I had driven dad's imperial Expedition; now here we were in a bourgeois 1995 Volkswagen Golf that sat about an inch above the roadway. Plus, most of the roads in the Czech Republic are two-lane affairs, with a catch: they're wide enough to accommodate a passing lane in the middle. Alas, this passing lane isn't marked and only develops when a speeder decides to pass, forcing oncoming cars to huddle over to the side or participate in a head-on meeting.

But we made it through all that and eventually wound our way through the mountains, across the border, and down into Chemnitz, Germany at 18:00, when Jarmila fell asleep.

Listening to the BBC news, I found my way across town and turned onto the Autobahn.

The rules of the autobahn, which tend to be strictly observed:

Right lane is for trucks, amateurs, and putters; in theory, all traffic should gravitate here.

Middle lane is for faster traffic; visitors from the slow lane can sometimes (quickly) venture here, but again, all traffic should gravitate to the slow lane.

Fast lane is for the sharks; if you're driving below 200kmp, you're not a shark. If, as a non-shark, you must venture into the fast lane, be extremely vigilant for sharks. That speck on the horizon will be on your ass any second and he is assuming you're going to get out of his way. Of course if he rear-ends you he's culpable, but it probably won't matter much. You'll both be chum.

We were glad to arrive again in Halle, safe and sound after the harrowing Autobahn.

Then later that night came the point we had been looking forward to for weeks: All the luggage up the stairs and in the flat, front door closed and shoes off – home at last!

This past trip was a long one – we left on December 23^rd and returned Feb. 12^th. Two months away from your home is just too long.

That first night back is when the insomnia came. Saturday wasn't so bad – you don't have to get up and work the next day, so you're not horribly stressed about not sleeping. But Sunday night is a different story – if you're not sleeping, the stress of it just compounds matters.

And then if you don't sleep Monday night, the psychological stress starts to get to you, to say nothing of the physical exhaustion.

Which brings me back to the beginning of the entry: yesterday was the third day of a lack of sleep, and we were beginning to be crabby.

A sample dialog:

Jarmila, after arriving home from work: "You haven't unpacked your luggage yet?"

Jim, defensively: "I've been busy."

Jarmila: "You work at home!"

Jim: "Yeah, and?"

And so on…

So it was good that the snowstorm hit Tuesday morning, because it gave us something external to think about. It was a heavy snow, the kind that lounges over everything and that, ironically, gives you a cozy feeling to watch.

But apparently there has been too much snowfall lately. The river is swelling, said the radio, so I went to investigate.

Sure enough, the Saale is overflowing its banks. It's already taken over a portion of the park between two pedestrian bridges, as pictured above.

Floods, or any giant act of nature, have an oddly alluring effect. I wandered up to the water, noted the speed at which it's hurtling by, the oddity of it being somewhere it shouldn't be, and I suddenly felt terribly homesick.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

A trip to the cabin

After three weeks of running around with drunken students, disgruntled Inaugural Day protesters and various academics here at Penn State, I still hadn't found time to visit the family cabin in Elk County.

It's hard, even when you don't have an office to go to, to find a whole day free of commitments. A day you can just slip out and head for the hills.
But finally, yesterday, I did just that.

I dropped Jarmila off at work and turned dad's gigantic Ford Expedition northwards. It took about an hour of silent driving (something about the bleak January day made me switch off the radio) to reach the portion of State Road 150 I was looking for. Just north of Lock Haven, 150 begins to trot next to the Sinnemahoning River and between the stately, majestically rounded mountains of Central PA.

FALLING ROCK, NEXT 5 MILES read the signs, as the road skirted blasted-away cliffs decked out for the winter in icy dreadlocks. I kept my eyes open for incoming boulders, but later came to realize they were probably frozen in place and wouldn't be a problem until the spring, by which time I'd be long gone, back to European living.

Around mid-way through my planned driving retreat, I stopped seeing other cars. At first this made me feel courageous and slightly reckless, but then it occurred to me that people were probably not driving for a reason.

But what the hell. I had a 4-wheel drive with huge tires and nothing better to do but visit my old stompin' grounds.

I sallied forth.
The trees were black.
The snow was white.

The only real color was the frigid blue of the river as it washed over the smooth frumpiness of its lower icy layers, or where it peeked around the jagged corners of the broken ice floes gathered in the river bends.

Overlooking the river at one such bend was a sturdy log cabin, built 200 yards up the hill from the water. It had a massive rear deck which must have provided a panoramic of the pine-forested, 2,000 foot-high peak across the river valley. As I sped by, I longed to have such a place.

The longing seemed to linger and as I drove on I found myself feeling slightly depressed, which was odd because I've been more upbeat lately than not.

Then the nature of my malaise dawned on me – I was halfway through my day-long adventure. My big day of freedom was half-over, and I was looking back with sadness at the time gone instead of looking forward with happiness at the time to come. Or even enjoying the moment that I was in.

These musings put me in mind of midway points, and I slowly realized that among all things, it is mid-way that I dislike the most.

• When I was mid-way through my novel, I was petrified that something might happen to me and the world would never know the book. I was also afraid that I might never muster the will to finish it.
• In the best of times I am a nervous flyer, but midway over the Atlantic, a point I pass over all too frequently, truly freaks me. It is then I begin to worry in earnest. What would happen if the plane went down in the middle of the Atlantic? How soon would the rescue teams make it there? If we survived a landing, and if we were able to get out of the plane before inhaling ocean, and if we were able to wrest them from under the seat, would the puny floatation devices even work?
• It is halfway through our trips back to the States that I begin to dread the upcoming return flight and the subsequent distance from my American family and friends.
• Lastly, I am 35. Mid-life crisis, anyone?

PS: As I wandered through our rustic cabin, I finally gave up the illusion that I will ever be able to convince my wife to spend another night there. The photo of the white-encrusted frozen spider on a background of black moldy ceiling was just too good. I had to show her.