an evening, a night, and a morning

fortunately i felt relatively fit again on friday, so i was able to go to work, but only for the morning. how nice to hear that my students had missed me! :)

in the afternoon i slept a little in preparation for the all night open mic at café kafka. some of the usual suspects are away at the moment, but others gathered around the tables in hamid's cosy café: peter waugh, steve gander, sylvia petter, evelyn holloway, nathan horowitz, horst prillinger, janus zeitstein, bob hewis, ronnie niedermeyer, harold otto, alina serban. lilly and oxana dropped in for a while, too. it was a bit of a bumpy ride in the beginning, not as smooth as last time, but once we were on our way, it went really well. the special guest was estonian poet triin soomets, she brought poetry in german, english and estonian - what a language! i love that about these kafka nights, that we sometimes get to hear languages you don't normally come into contact with.


triin soomets


i first read two more of my alice poems since people enjoyed those i read last time. and later on, nathan and i read excerpts from small confessions & pebbles of regret, nathan reading three of alex's poems while i replied with three of mine. it was so quiet during the reading, always a good sign, and the feedback was really good, too. :) much later, i read tomas tranströmer's schubertiana and two poems from my elemental manuscript.


nathan & michi, small confessions & pebbles of regret


some of the stories, poems, performances, songs we heard that night were really good - i loved one of triin's poems about europe, some of nathan's work, particularly enjoyed the first part of sylvia's pippa story, laughed myself silly over nathan's reading of the spontaneous group poem i'd inadvertently started early that evening when i complained about men and nathan wrote downsome of my words. sylvia added to the heat in the café with one of her erotic stories, ronnie shared some lovely - and some weird - work, and i just adore what some people (a guy called mitch, i believe) can do with their voice. sophie and her partner briefly turned into frogs, peter read us very special football results, horst introduced us to a couple of freezing police officers, and evelyn lingered in the fruit & veg section for a while.

around 04.30, i went for a walk around the block, it was getting light, and it was quiet and nice outside. our wonderful host hamid served breakfast to the ones who'd made it through the night: ronnie, nathan, steve, evelyn, peter, janus, and me. sylvia had left only a little earlier.


the breakfast club: peter, janus, evelyn, steve


i don't know about the others, but i say: more all night open mics! :)

more pictures of the event in my flickr album.


instead of going home like a sensible person, i walked down to naschmarkt, vienna's most famous market, and instead of just having a quick look around, i was there until 08.45, spending money, enjoying the atmosphere, and - of course - taking lots of pictures. i should go there more often, such lovely colours, and such interesting people!


dried fruit & mixed nuts



sneaky monkey



vienna's high-tech gnomes waldemar and willibald



Big Ass Is Watching You


for more pictures, see my flickr album.


song of the day: scorpio rising by the 10,000 maniacs.

the working life and the other life

my english III class ended on wednesday - my farewell presents from my lovely students were two books, one about alaska (i had mentioned it was my big dream to go there) and a survival handbook (to avoid meeting the same fate as chris mccandless of into the wild), chocolate for comfort and tissues to dry my tears. :)

i had a reunion with some students of the previous english group last weekend - unfortunately some could not make it, and some did not show up, which i found disapppointing. but it was lovely to see those who were there!

more work for me: monday i started working afternoons as well as mornings. what i am doing is new for me. i'm working with under 21's, helping them with job-hunting, preparing them for job interviews, personality development, etc. georg, who is responsible for the english trainings and this q4u project, said i was his first choice for the job, which is nice feedback. :) the good thing is that i will not have to worry about finding work the rest of the year, the down side is the commuting that takes up my one-hour lunch break. it's quite nice that one of my ex-colleagues, heinz, is now working at the same office again, and one of our old colleagues, franz, works downstairs for another company. :) so far, things are going okay, though a couple of the youngsters can be quite a pain in the butt at times. ;)

i also had to turn down two jobs on tuesday - one translation job, and one as a business english trainer. much better than last year when i was so worried about not finding enough work!

* * * * *
me and my tattoo are both fine - it is healing well, and i am very happy with it. i guess i am getting another one done on my birthday, although i actually feel like doing it sooner. but i will have to figure out what and where. maybe alice, the wonderland girl.

* * * * *
i met poet cecilia woloch on thursday, she was reading at shakespeare & co in vienna's first district with my friend hillary keel. i fell in love with cecilia's poetry straight away. check her out on the web!

and yesterday it was kafka time again - open mic sans mic, this time, due to a missing cable. and i swore right after my five minutes that i would not use the mic there ever again - i felt so, hm, i guess, liberated. i have come to really enjoy reading, but i never feel absolutely comfortable with the mic. and yesterday it was almost like trying it out at home! i read two of my alice poems (the first two when you follow the link) and got looooovely feedback from several people.

girl not quite able to pull off the missing-someone-look amidst all the laughter


all in all i thought the quality of the poetry and stories was particulary good last night. hillary keel - yesterday's MC - kicked the reading off, we heard work by jean almeida, sylvia petter, carlota rokita, evelyn holloway, nathan horowitz, der kosmonaut, horst prillinger as well as some first-timers and special guest cecilia woloch. she is quite a lovely person and her poetry really is beautiful. steve gander finished off a sometimes very raunchy evening with his classic song "copulate and populate". yay!

special guest cecilia woloch


kafka laughter: sylvia petter, cecilia woloch, bob hewis, hillary keel


steve gander in action


i went to salz&pfeffer with sandro miori to talk business (website) until about 02.45 and i did not actually get to bed until nearly 5!

bottle shapes

quote of the night: "try to unblur your face! you're moving in six different directions at the same time!" (nathan to me, trying to take a picture entitled "girl missing mexican")

* * * * *
today, the unthinkable happened: i bought a dress. my first in i-don't-know-how-long (except wedding dress and a ball gown). so, unless i take it back to the shop, some of you might actually get to see me in it.

ah yes, and the euro2008 has finally begun. let the next few weeks pass by quickly. please.


song of the day: cut here by the cure.

café kafka

as promised - pics of the latest open mic at café kafka (friday, 04 april). my new - and very brave - friend valerio decided to come along, and what's even better: he did not regret it afterwards!

i read what is the sound of one hand clapping?, and one of the letters from small confessions & pebbles of regret. cristina, the special guest from mexico, asked me to read the german translations of two poems for her, so there was a first for me - reading in german! we took tons of photos, i loved hillary keel's poem about istanbul, and martin aka homemade gordon banks is just the bestest mc ever. especially in spanish. :)

the reading part was over around 11.45, and then we stayed to chat with some of the regulars, and the newly-weds ruth & bruno dropped in ... and i did not get home until 2 am!


martin, bestest mc in the whole wide ... erm, wien?


blurry but having fun: valerio & i


hillary & harold


happiness has a name: ruth & bruno, the newlyweds


valerio has a laugh


two lovely ladies - ruth & i


more pictures on my flickr page .

song of the day: madagascar by gogol bordello.