It must be tough being a northern German chicken. When there's less than eight hours of not-dark (calling it sunlight, or even light, would be a gross exaggeration) it's not easy to figure out when to roost or when to peck. We (the chickens and me) could wake up at 1 p.m. or at 3 a.m., and no one would be the worse for it. Jammies are appropriate at all hours (that said, there are "answer-the-door" jammies and "eeks-I'm-not-really-dressed-jammies," the former being more appropriate of late since our apartment's become the repository for everyone else's tardy Christmas packages.) I'm become accustomed to breakfast at noon, lunch around dusk, and dinner, well, around the same time the Spaniards take it, sans the club-going at 1 a.m. I'm not quite seasonally disordered, but I'm sure finding it challenging to shower and dress before sundown. If this keeps up, I will have re-lagged myself back to P.S.T. and perhaps even catch up with my early-rising parents in Maui, who, if they were clever, could find a way to FedEx us some Vit D.
But who needs pills for a pick-me-up when you've got firearms and other various incendiary works? New Year's was a riot of paper shrapnel and flying sticks, spinning flames and public urination. Yet who knew order would spring so soon from chaos, as we stumbled back to Unter den Linden on Jan. 1 for a promenade and there wasn't a red-paper scrap in sight -- in our 14-hour drinking debauchery I had, for a moment, thought the whole carnival was a hallucination -- and this seemed to confirm my post-firework fears. It is not difficult to recapture childhood awe when surrounded by millions of people armed with things that go boom and fizz and pop, easier still to feel scorched both inside and out the day after, having inhaled mushroom clouds of gunpowder and smoke. Nick me with a flint and I'd probably burst into flame. But what a time, and what a new year.
