Sigh. Here I was, all prepared to write about my delightful trip to Germany, and then I went and got semi-sort-of-laid-off this afternoon, and now I don’t know which to write about first. Perhaps I had better just hit the highlights of both quickly and then go eat some chocolate. My very sweet boss, who is very distraught about the whole thing, seems convinced that I am too upset to work this afternoon and should be relaxing. I’m really pretty much okay and could surely get a little work done, but who am I to argue?

So. Unpleasantness first, I am semi-sort-of laid-off. As in, the grant money that pays my research salary is running out this fall and the new grants didn’t come through, so at some point this fall I will be finding myself unemployed. With a firmer date to be fixed next week. It kind of sucks, but it’s also the nature of the beast in grant funding. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, I’m in good financial shape to weather some unemployment, and I had been thinking of looking for something new this winter anyway. And I’ve been promised glowing references. So if one must be laid off, I’ve probably got the best circumstances possible. I’m a little bummed, and I’d like to have a definite end date so I can start making plans for whatever comes next, but I’m mostly okay. Plus, I am thinking that if I have a little while between jobs, this might be an excellent chance to take that long-overdue trip to Seattle and Portland that never worked out because of work. There are so many wonderful people in both cities that I am long overdue to spend time with, that it would be a big fat silver lining. Maybe more lining than cloud.

On to more pleasant stuff. Germany! Germany was excellent, although a little more hectic than I like my trips, since we bounced around to three different cities in our week and a half there. We had a tranquil and lovely few days in Assmanshausen near Frankfurt (and yes, the city name made me giggle constantly, because I am mentally about twelve), where we ate good food and drank good beer and went on a boat cruise down the Rhine and unwound from work stress. Then we took a very long train ride to Berlin, which was cold and rainy and miserable for most of the time we were there. A little bit of sight-seeing, like the Berlin Wall (which was really interesting, but I was a bit disturbed by the tourist trap that Checkpoint Charlie has become, just around the corner.) One day when Len stayed in the hotel to work, I went off with my family to the Berlin Zoo, which I can duly report has the most impressive collection of chickens I have ever seen. A very odd zoo, but sort of neat. I can’t remember what we did on our third day, which leads me to believe we probably just wandered around the city. And as always when travelling with my parents, really good dining experiences abounded.

A further train ride took us to Munich, which pretty much involved more of the same. A little sightseeing but mostly just pleasant meanderings around the city, people-watching and occasionally stopping for more really good beer, or to eat the best Thai food ever in the history of the world. By that time I was just starting to regain enough recollection of my meager German instruction to be not completely incompetent, so of course it was time to go home again. I think Len and I are agreed that next time we do this, we will first institute a strict regimen of watching German movies and TV to brush up on our language skills. (Also, I think I will not go to the Hofbrau Haus again, as it almost made my head explode and also the beers were the size of a cat.) And then home, where I am happy but quite jet-lagged and finding myself disturbingly wide awake at six a.m.

Enough. There were more general things I wanted to write about Germany, but they will have to wait. I want to get one or two more things done today, and then we’re skipping out of work early to do a giant grocery run since our refrigerator is sadly empty other than Len’s hot sauce collection. (Speaking of which, I was very amused by Emily’s adventures in house-sitting for us. Hee. Sorry, Emily.)

Sometimes the universe is just not all that subtle in telling me what I need to be doing with myself. A few days ago during a quick trip to Barnes & Noble so Len could continue his mission to own every CD in the world, I happened to pass by the women’s studies section of the bookstore and realized it had been an awfully long time since I had done any serious reading along those lines. I picked out a couple of interesting-looking books, and have since been whiling my time away with No Constitutional Right To Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship. All well and good.

Then yesterday I went to the first of many training sessions to become a phone counselor for a rape crisis hotline, and we spent a good chunk of the evening talking about the history of the women’s movement and more particularly the history of services for sexual assault survivors, and that got me all fired up. (I don’t know why I never quite realized before that the Violence Against Women Act didn’t pass until 1994. Ten years ago. Jesus.) And then this morning on my way into work I happened to pass a stack of copies of the local free newspaper, where the cover article this week addresses gender-gap problems specific to Pittsburgh. Enough already, universe! I get it! Other than clinic escorting and the March in DC, I haven’t been doing much either in terms of activism or just my own education about feminist history and issues for the last god knows how long. And perhaps it’s about time I did.

Not that I’ll have time to do anything much for the rest of the summer, as this counselling training is going to eat up a large chunk of my time. The first session was great, if intense, and I’m looking forward to the rest, but it is rather time-intensive. Especially counting in the commute back from the South Side to my house, which involves several buses and lots of waiting around. It’s also making me think about my weird ambivalence about women. How much I care about working to support and help women in the general, abstract sense, and yet how much trouble I have connecting with individual other women. It’s an ongoing area of confusion for me, and I suppose there’s no hope of me suddenly fixing the whole thing this summer when I haven’t managed to figure out how to fix it in the several years it’s been a problem. But I suspect it’s going to be on my mind a lot for the rest of the summer anyway.

I am rather overwhelmed and tired at the moment. Probably doesn’t help that I just got back from clinic duty, so I am sleepy and my legs hurt and my fingers hurt from clenching tight in my pockets when people pass by on the street and tell me I’m evil, I’m going to hell, I’m hurting women. The first couple roll off my back, but that last one stings. It stings a lot. It makes me want to reach out and stop them and say, I know you believe that, I know you want what’s best, but can’t you see what’s what I want too? I’m not here because I desperately want women to have abortions, I’m here because I desperately want women to have options. I want them to be able to make the lives they want for themselves whether that involves having children now, later, or never. I want them to have information about all their choices and support for whatever they ultimately decide, and I want you to stop yelling at them. And at me. I didn’t get up at six a.m. on a Saturday and leave my warm bed after five hours’ sleep because it’s fun, I did it because I’m trying to put my effort where my beliefs are and help make the world into what I think it should and could be.

Not that it would do any good. Not that we’re terribly likely to bridge the polarization in the country, on our one little block of sidewalk in Pittsburgh. Not that I’m allowed to talk to them anyway, whatever they say to me. And most weeks I don’t even care, I find it funny or I ignore it. But today it really bothered me. Maybe I just need some sleep. I just came home a few minutes ago and the house is quiet and empty, so it would probably be a good time to catch a quick nap before Len gets back from whatever he’s gone out to do. Surely a nap, and the resulting pile of cuddly purring cats on the bed, will snap me out of this particular fit of melancholy. If not, perhaps I will take myself off to the movie theater tonight for a midnight showing of The Manchurian Candidate. A good old movie is always comforting for me. And I probably should see it one more time before the remake gets released and tarnishes my fond recollection of the original.

(Note from several hours later when I am getting around to posting this: A nap definitely did help. And while I am not going to be awake late enough for Manchurian Candidate, I watched Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend, which satisfied my old film craving quite nicely. Now I am listening to the Avenue Q soundtrack, there is a kahlua cheesecake baking in the oven, and I have a very sweet Antigone-cat rubbing up against my ankles, and all is right with the world. But I thought I’d go ahead and post this anyway despite the sleep-deprived whining level, because really, what are the chances of my writing a whole different entry tonight?)