I went up to the bank today to cash in a cheque for Black Sheep. It wasn't a whole lot, and with the American dollar the way it is, I actually ended up losing a couple of dollars once I paid the conversion fee, but that's how it is some times. To be honest, I was kind of surprised when it showed up last week, but it seems that every six months or so I get a cheque for a hundred odd dollars, and a slip of paper that tells me 90 or so copies have been sold. I wish I knew what I'd done with the previous ones I'd gotten--I could add up the numbers correctly and say how many it had sold. It wouldn't be a whole lot, but it's enough, I guess, to find yourself on the German Abitur, which is still, a year later, a kind of strange and bizarre thing.

While I was in the bank cashing in my money, however, the woman serving me told me that I sounded American. "No," I said, "I'm local."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Been there recently, then?"

"No."

"Well, you have a very unique way of speaking," she said, trying to end the conversation quickly. "What is it you do?"

I told her I run my own part time tutoring business, and that I write around the hours I work. I nodded to the cheque she was holding. "It's big money, as you can see." She laughed, and I think she thought I was joking, but she had access to my account information, and the jokes stopped soon enough.

(crossposted)