Seifenblasen

It's not that I don't have a lot to say about the last few weeks. It's just that I was waiting for the right title.

My roommate moved out last week, and left me a bottle of German bubbles with a teddy bear on the front that only a German would describe as cuddly. Yes, I have something against Germans. There was a saying when I was traveling: If you meet a nice German person, they're Dutch. For a year, I found this to be, for the most part, true. In New Zealand I traveled with a German guy for safety reasons. He annoyed me for days by instructing me about the right way to do every last thing: hitchhike, pick a campsite, pitch a tent in the rain. Then one morning we had a campfire and I suggested making egg-in-an-orange. Here's what you do: slice an orange in half, scoop out the fruit, leaving the rind intact. Crack an egg into one half, add salt and pepper, seal with eggwhite, and put it (carefully) into the fire. We got through the first step, the German and I. Then he stopped. I explained again how it works, going into some detail about how the eggwhite seals the halves of the orange peel together as it cooks, keeping out the ash. He still just looked at me. "I don't know how," he said. "It's okay," I reassured him, "just crack the egg and I'll show you how to seal it up and place it on the coals." Again, the look. "I don't know how," he said again. To crack an egg.

Turns out he was fresh out of military service, and had lived at home before that and never helped his mom in the kitchen. He'd just never had a chance to learn about egg-cracking. Maybe it's a guy thing. But he was much better company after that.

German-bashing aside, I had a very nice German housemate when I first moved to San Francisco, and my sister was married to a German who had his good points, like punctuality, and who loved to cook. So you really can't make generalities. But that doesn't stop me from doing it anyway.

Life at the ZC is going well. Actually, it sortof feels like 4 lives: work, personal, career development, and Zen-ification. I return to UC Berkeley next week. I got my website up, with help. I started back at the career transition place, and remet some of my fellow Sun ex-coworkers in a class on interviewing. We were videotaped answering typical interview questions -- just the sort of thing I used to do to executives preparing for press and analyst tours. Interesting to be on the other side of the camera, for a change.

A friend came to town; his dad had a stent put into a major artery near his kidney yesterday morning. He's doing fine, but the doctor said he'd had a better shot at longevity if he lost some weight. In this case, 50 pounds.

Now, 6 pounds was disruptive for me. My pants didn't fit. I feared muscle wasting. I hoarded Newman's Os. I gained it back. But 50? I can't imagine it. What you would eat? How would you adapt? I've heard hypnotherapy can be helpful, to get you through the shock of the change. Aye.

In my Zen life, I have study, meditation, comraderie, and a delightful stint doing bag lunch prep on Tuesday nights with a sweet Michiganer named Mary who always wears a hat that covers her ears. It is cold here, and it's been raining. I also have a few people that I'm having difficulty with, mainly because I don't like them and who knew? They picked up on that. To use a Buddhist phrase, it gives me a lot to work with.

In my work life, I wrote an article this week for a new client in NY who's launching a website. I'm also slated to start next week with a super groovy consultancy here in SF that does executive leadership training; I'll ghostwrite the consultants' blogs. I got great feedback in my class yesterday, both about my presentation skills and also the quality of my feedback to the others in the group, so I'm considering restarting that business, and hanging out a shingle as a media trainer. I'll let you know how it goes.

I hope everyone's well, and has something fun planned for Thanksgiving next week. I'll be with good friends, sipping martinis and eating turkey. Don't tell the monks.