November 25. Thanksgiving with Sauerbraten, Rotkohl and Klößen. Cooking it is one thing, and J does it with bravado and the usual professionalism of a manager. Pronouncing the words is something else entirely, and turns out to be virtually impossible.

November 24. Thanksgiving in Newburgh. First American Thanksgiving. First train ride up the Hudson in the dark, the sail boats are covered with white tarps.

I’m going to finish the year by reading the book on Evolutionary Psychology, the highest rated book on my Goodreads list. I feel like I’m entering forbidden territory, a terrain full of thoughts that must not be uttered, and that’s precisely why I want to go there. The bad experiences with this were years ago, and I still shudder at the thought that there should be thoughts that are forbidden.

November 23. I’ve never searched for it, and I know few examples, but when it comes to their sex life, most men seem to claim that age doesn’t change a thing. I can’t say the same for me. I have far greater stamina, for example, which is nice. However, I have this stamina only because I am no longer so at the mercy of my arousal, because it has become more fragile, not to say weaker. I have a new fear – the fear of failing at sex, and that fear is insidious: if you have it, you fail. It turns out that sex can be improved by bioengineering, just as a woman can beautify herself by bioengineering, and I’m here for it.

November 22. I didn’t realize I could get so many things done in one day. Maybe not in terms of pure work output, but so many vastly different things, all requiring the utmost concentration. Root Cause Analysis for a client. Out of court settlement rejected, out of court settlement considered accepted. Video with the kids and J. Dropped her car off in the underground garage before seven, picked it up after seven. The equanimity with which I establish a roughly equal level of order and cleanliness every evening without having to discuss it with anyone.

November 21, Atlantic addendum. Wondered about the wind farm I could see in the ocean from the plane earlier this week. Wind turbines that rose a few dozen meters into the atmosphere and picked up a bit of air movement there, while we flew over them at an altitude of ten kilometers. Still a kind of stone age.

November 20, Austin. With J down Rainey Street, a drink in every bar. We make it from top to bottom, but not back. I’m desperate because I can let go maybe a hundred times and get caught up in moments, but just not the whole evening. I want to know how other people are doing it and I feel so awful, so out there, so incapable like I always have felt. I know that it’s fine, that it doesn’t matter, but tonight that doesn’t change anything.

November 19, Austin, team meeting. J explains to me the respect in which I am held by my co-workers.

November 18. Flight to Austin. The endless cities. Airplanes crawling through the atmosphere.

November 17. The benefits of engineers loving each other are unheard of. Problem analysis, strategy development, repeat. We have a cockpit with buttons that are secured with protective caps against accidental release, protective caps that have to be flipped up with a resounding clack.

November 16. Learned from J that I will try is not an acceptable answer in American English. An acceptable answer is consider it done.