Sunday, 27 March 2005 | Barometer

Right now I'm reading a book about the Stasi, or the East German secret police. I've been fascinated by the former East ever since Ingo began telling me stories about it (the personal kind, rather than the detached tales presented to me in history class). I'm reading it, in part, to refresh my memory for a trip to Germany that I'm taking in May. It's been almost exactly five years since I moved back from there, and since my grasp of the language began to unravel. Somehow that number seems inaccurate.

I used to measure time by the city or apartment that I lived in, or by the color of my hair. It seemed that I changed those elements often enough that I could date a photograph or memory within a 3-month margin of error. Naturally I use seasons to gauge passing time, too. I'm told that people who live in places with consistent weather (like L.A.) tend to have more trouble remembering which month a certain event happened. Of course, that would be impossible to verify, but I believe it anyway.