I spent a day in Germany

Never Done: Spent a day in Germany

And there are just so many ways I could break that down more specifically:

Never got off a plane, stood in line for passport control, and saw a good friend (David Krakauer) through the glass, standing in line for security. (We didn't get to talk, but we did get to pantomime.)

Never took the S-Bahn. Never took the U-Bahn.

Never tried to explain to German people that while I don't speak German, I do speak Yiddish, and maybe we could figure out together how to communicate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it works, I think the real communication comes not so much in getting the words right, but in the delight we all have in trying so hard. I have already started to modify some of my Yiddish vowels to German ones, and it's making a difference. While it might be a difference in actual comprehension, I think it's at least equally important that they can tell I am trying. I've never been in this position before -- all my life, wherever I have traveled, I have been in the uncomplicated position of knowing that it is respectful (and for me, linguistically interesting) to do my best to speak the language of the place. That I move to meet them, and not expect them to move to meet me. This time it's got a twist. If I only knew English, I would feel the same. That it's Yiddish that I know adds a layer of complexity, because when I have the thought that it's important and respectful that I start to bend my vowels and reach for words that I have picked up in German instead of Yiddish, I have this nagging thought in the back of my head, "Do I really have to bend my Yiddish to make it easier for the Germans? Or could the Germans perhaps bend a little to understand my Yiddish?" I realize that when I have these thoughts, I'm in some territory that transcends me and the person I'm speaking with, and that it doesn't really make sense to resolve a grievance between Yiddish and German when I am trying to figure out how to say "oatmeal" (Is it what horses eat? Yes!) but I would be lying if I said it didn't creep in there anyhow.

Was never in Berlin.

After being friends for twenty years, never before traveled with Kathleen.

Never missed my mom's yortsayt. (You can't light a candle on a plane! I ended up lighting the candle 24 hours later.)

Never walked past a street book vendor in Berlin and saw a book with a swastika on it. (I just kept going, because we were on our way to our first meeting.)

Never sat in a cafe with Kathleen and a filmmaker who has made two films about the Red Army Faction, and listened to them talk with each other, each from their own unique perspective. I know this is the heart of the trip, but it's also not mine to write about publicly, so I'm telling you now that I'll be pretty fingers-off-the-keyboard on this topic.

Never (literally) fell asleep standing up. It turns out that we don't have internet in the apartment where we are staying, and so Kathleen and I went looking for some alternate modes of communication -- in particular, a SIM card for Kathleen's phone. But by the time we found a place that had one, I was nodding off at the counter, my knees buckling and jerking me awake. I think I maybe had one hour of interrupted sleep on the plane the night before, and we hadn't had time to rest before going back out to our first meeting, so I was running on fumes.

Never went into a German department store (where K got the 100% cotton socks she'd been dreaming of getting since the last time she visited Germany.)

Never been so happy to finally fall asleep lying down, under a poster of Charlie Chaplain, in Christian Dawid's beautiful new apartment, in PrenzlauerBerg, in the former East Germany.

I didn't do my taxes on time

Never Done: I didn't do my taxes on time
Never Done: I flew to Germany

I know it's not even tax day yet because they extended it by another three days, but Kathleen and I got on a plane to Germany, and I didn't do my taxes. I didn't even add up all the receipts that are sitting in a plastic container at home. Actually, I think I should back up a little. My mom died on April 15, 2008. Tax day. Before that, I was taxation's golden girl. I filed early, whether by myself or with the help of an accountant. I had a filing system of legal-sized envelopes which I've labeled in Sharpie: Income, Office in home, Business equipment, Donations, Transportation, etc. Over the course of the year, I would pile my receipts and pay stubs in a plastic box, and then sometime in January I would choose a weekend, turn on some movies, and dump the receipts all over the floor, and file them til only a few random ones remained, which I had put into the envelope named Misc. Then I would compile all the information onto a big document, and either do my taxes myself, or send the info to my accountant. While I don't think I would say I looked forward to the yearly ritual, I also don't think I would say I didn't at some level enjoy it. Because I like Order: All actions and possessions should have a set place and time.

And then my mom died.

The year she died, I filed for my first extension ever. The year after she died, I filed for my second extension ever. The next year, I filed for my third extension ever. It's a stretch to say that I filed for those extensions though; really, I asked my accountant to do it for me. I must have had to add up all the numbers before April 15 though, because I had to make estimated payments. To tell the truth, I don't remember doing any of it. The bloom was off the rose, and like it is for most people, there was no pleasure in order; just a chore to be put off. And instead of getting easier and easier, like things are supposed to as time goes on and supposedly heals all wounds, it has actually gotten harder and harder, and this year I just didn't get it together until it was too late.

Part of the problem is that I don't like my accountant. I haven't liked him for many years now, but the same inertia that got me into this situation has also made it impossible for me to find a new one. Impossible. That sounds ridiculous. And at the same time, grief gets displaced in a million strange ways, and sometimes you just can't find a new accountant. I wrote to him about 2 months ago to get the usual ball rolling, and he didn't write back. And then I wrote again a couple weeks later, and his reply, which came in another couple of weeks, was oblique and passive aggressive. Actually, maybe it was just aggressive. He wrote, "I have been thinking about the last two e-mails and how to respond. Not sure how to crumple up e-mails like letters."

Just so you know, my first email asked him how to separate business and personal income, and for the record, I did not ask in an asshole-ish way. The second email asked him to reply to the first. Rather than crumpling up his email like a letter, I think I crumpled, and just stopped dealing with my taxes altogether.

On the upside, this experience has given me a huge amount of compassion for people who are chronically late with their taxes. On the downside, I didn't do anything about them again until the morning of my trip to Germany, the day before tax day, and the eve of my mom's yortsayt. On the upside, I added up all my income. On the downside, I didn't add up any of my expenses. On the upside, I figured out how to calculate how much tax I might have to pay. On the downside, I couldn't figure out if I needed to pay it to New Jersey (where my business is officially housed) or New York (where I live.) On the upside, I called both New Jersey and New York and got incredibly nice and patient people who at least helped me with the online forms to file extensions. On the downside, I am still not sure what "sales and use tax" is, and why the New York online form doesn't actually have a line for "income tax." On the upside, I think I covered my ass with both states. On the downside, Kathleen pointed out to me, once we were on the plane, that I forgot to file a federal extension. Oops. On the upside, she has some program on her computer and is going to help me do it from Germany. On the upside (that's two upsides in a row, and a signal that this is coming around to some Big Meaning) I spent most of my life staving off feelings of chaos by arriving early to parties and getting my taxes done two months early, and I think it does me good to test the waters of chaos. So I asked myself, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" and laughed a lot, and then realized that the worst thing that could happen was that I'd get some fine, and that I didn't really want to get a fine. So I decided to do my best to get an extension, and to do my best to estimate how much to pay, and maybe I'll mess up, and maybe I won't, and let the chips, and the taxes, fall in the general direction of order, if not neatly filed into individually labeled legal-sized envelopes.

Also, I flew to Germany.