Anja is a phenomenon. Sheās gorgeous, brilliant, hilarious, full of depth, the maker of the best chicken parm in the known universe, a stellar ceramics artist, and an impactful high school English teacher. Serendipitously, sheās my life partner.
Sheās a private person, which means the vast majority of the amazing things I experience with and photograph of her donāt make it onto this website. Below are a few times she did pop into a story.
On occasion, Anja will compliment me on my ability to recognize people. I donāt know when I first noticed it myself, but there are actors I recognize even if they played minor characters in an episode of a show I watched 15 years ago. Or I might point out that woman I saw on the bus before COVID hit to a confused Anja.
Iām learning itās not a very common trait because of the scoffing sound I make whenever Anja confuses Keira Knightly and Daisy Ridley, or Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan. (Continue)
Iām in that supremely annoying stage of prospective dog ownership where I casually interrogate dog owners at parties, curious about their petās behavior and the techniques employed, and then silently judge them for their mistakes, exchanging contemptuous glances with Anja in the process. (Continue)
Happy Hanukkah and/or Christmas to those who celebrate! Even though our house is (reluctantly) multi-religious, we forgot just about every tradition we were ever taught for this time of the year. On Hanukkah Eve, Anja said āwhere are the tea lights?ā, but we had no luck finding them to produce a makeshift chanukiah. Probably for the best. I donāt mind that we didnāt put up a Christmas tree, but I did find myself missing our outrageous ornaments. (Continue)
Amsterdamās patient zero is a woman who just happens to have spent early 2020 in the north of Italy. She has a son who attends the high school which just happens to be Anjaās place of employment. Anja is the first person I know to be infected with Covid 19. I am the second.
Working in travel technology, my experience of the outbreak of Covid 19 was colored by coworkers wondering by the water cooler what all the fuss was about. (Continue)
āSlept a little, had a midnight snack, went in for a bathroom break. Slept some more. Basically the life of a four-year-oldā she says, and she tells me about her flight to Stockholm. She has been sleeping poorly lately; I say ālatelyā but I only met her last month, so I donāt know what her sleep hygiene is, although she says āit has improved since I began falling asleep in your armsā. (Continue)
