An Overdue Update

I know, it’s been a while. I’m sorry. But because I’m writing this on Word at school with no internet connection, I’ve got plenty of time to write a nice long post, if you’re willing to read it.

Bill and I had a tennisful couple of weeks. The Australian Open was on and we watched hours of tennis everyday. And I loved it, despite having little to no interest in tennis before this. But our television options are rather limited, and with tennis it doesn’t matter if the announcer is speaking German with some very uncool and mispronounced American exclamations thrown in, so even Bill condescended to watch the women’s matches (which, though I berate Bill for talking shit about female athletes, was so much less impressive and more error-filled and slower than the men’s games). Oh, and Germans have a habit when speaking English of saying a ‘w’ sound when a word has a ‘v’. Because when going from English to German the sounds are switched. But it doesn’t quite work that way from German to English; the Germans just assume it does. So the announcer told us that “Wenus Villiam’s” had lost her match. And “Wenus” is a funny word. The Open just ended on Sunday, and we were very disappointed that the greasy Rafael Nadal beat the beautiful, god-like, elegant and classy Roger Federer. Bill has given me permission to have Federer’s babies if the opportunity arises, given the exceptional genetic advantage it would give my offspring.

Also, a week and a half ago, the Zwonitz team had their first match of the season against a neighboring town. Bill played singles against a short, older Bald Dude who was fairly good, but really didn’t stand a chance. And I, having recently been taught how tennis scoring works (though not the rationale behind it, if there is any), tried to keep score through the window of the club’s restaurant that overlooked his court. I lost my place several times, and credited various games to the wrong player, but it worked out because they were keeping score themselves. Then Bill and Nico played against Bald Dude and Short Weird-Looking Guy With The Crazy Serve. Bill and Nico won handily, though Nico had just lost his singles match without taking even one game. All in all, a major success, given that the two other Zwonitz players, Hubert and Klaus, won both their singles matches and their doubles match. It was fun to be with the winning team. And to be the only spectator at the match.

The Friday after the match, we’d been invited by one of the older tennis dudes to come to the tennis practice he puts on for kids every Friday afternoon at the high school. Bill asked if we could borrow a racquet for me and none of the kids showed up (I guess there’s a flu going around) so I got a private tennis lesson from two excellent tennis players! And there was a ball machine! And I learned a forehand and a backhand and sort of learned how to serve, but by that time I had a huge blister on my thumb and couldn’t hold the racquet very well. And Wolfgang, in his only English sentence of the day, said, “Yes, I think she has talent.” And I thought he was being very nice, because it seemed like I missed half the balls that came at me. But Bill said later that he wasn’t just being nice and I did have talent! Yay! Tennis might be my new hobby. I’ve never really had a hobby. Just reading, mostly, which makes me feel like a huge nerd when every kid I meet here, by way of getting to know me, asks what my hobbies are. And I have to say, “I like to read.”

Speaking of reading, I have a lot for my online classes. And for sexuality this week, I have to browse through the website of the Museum of Menstruation. Should be fun. If you’d like, I’ll write all about it here.