A Thousand Plateaus

the sunday morning started with rain rain rain. long threads of water connecting the sky and the earth and producing a soothing background sound.

shortly before i woke up this morning i remembered in my dream one of the last things bill murray's character says in broken flowers, something like "the past is past and the future is not here yet. all we have is the present". and i realized that this might be one of my problems (not that there weren't a million others), that i can't accept that the past is past and that i have to concentrate on the present. why do i still mourn for s. when she has a new boyfriend, a new life and why don't i concentrate on the present with anne instead of futilely returning to s. in my thoughts again and again?

it's one at night - i've just returned from a night out with princess superstar. we went to see broken flowers and after that we had a beer in a bar. it was nice, and the film distracted me, i really liked it (i'm a bill murray fan!)

and even though i was thinking about the film and we were sitting in the bar afterwards and i was trying to flirt with every female person around i was still thinking where you are tonight and with whom and where you are tonight and with whom and where you might be tonight.

just the other minute i saw a black plastic bag dancing in the wind just like in the film american beauty. i was on my way to the bar around the corner because i couldn't stand the confinements of my single-room apartment anymore. now i'm sitting here with the ibook, having a coffee and trying to prepare next week's seminar session.

yesterday bernd, leyla and i were putting together the proposal for the harvard conference. if they accept us, i'll open a bottle of champagne!

the weather has changed drastically: it's gotten rather cold and windy and rainy. no indian summer anymore. the same has happened to my mood. what about the "solitude of strength" that i had been invoking so vehemently? the solitude is here, but the strength isn't.

so, the semester has started and i can hardly find the time to take a breath, breathe deeply, but i find the time to fucking fucking miss you. it's eight months now, and still, and still, every girls with long, blond hair makes pearls of memory run down my back like your fingers wandered down my back aimlessly when we kissed, when i could feel the warm air that radiated from your body, fuck fuck i'm missing your body so much i'm missing my voice and the ways i once knew to transform longing into lyrics, into melodies. i'm rushing to the gym every night the moment i'm home to tire my body, to be to worn out to miss you, to think about you, to remember how you felt and smelled. this doesn't always work, though. and then you return like a ghostly imprint on my body.

fuck. today thomas came storming into the office and with a grand gesture he threw the 12 pages of my theory chapter onto my keyboard and said:

"very good! just write a hundred more pages and your dissertation is finished..." and i  asked

"you mean it's ok?"

"sure! it's quite good!"

and i wasn't even happy or relieved, maybe because i myself am not convinced that it's any good. maybe because i fear he hasn't read it carefully. maybe because there's nothing in my fucked up life that i could do right now that would make me happy. i want to write new songs. i want to finish the fucking dissertation. i want to organize that conference at harvard. i want that s. comes back, i want to kiss her again. i want to be friends with anne. i don't want to lose her. i want to see jana again. i want to kiss jana again. i want my life to flow over with tenderness, with beauty, with beauty that surprises me, with beauty that i have created, with beauty that i don't deserve and beauty that will make my heart burst, with beauty that i can touch and that touches me.

i want mermaids rising out of the ocean, humming, never turning to foam, humming, tasting of salt, humming, "and night blowing black from the ground…"

i'm missing you more than i ever thought i could.

sunday afternoon: it's been another gorgeous day: lots of sun, the perfect indian summer. spent the entire day inside, though. first i went to the gym in the morning and then i actually worked on the theory chapter. it grew a little. then i slept for another hour, which was refreshing. i'm still listening to blumfeld. the other minute the song 'teased' me, so i got out my guitar and played along to it. then i played low's "the long way around the sea" - and i realized that my voice was cracking every other note. and then i realized that i hadn't spoken a word since friday afternoon, because i didn't see anybody but spent the entire week-end on my own, secluded in my little apartment. no wonder my vocal cords felt a little rusted.

this morning, when i was looking for something in the drawer, i found an old photo that shows me in my fancy suit that i wore when a friend of mine married a couple of years ago.

i know: i look a little phony - i'm not wearing a suit normally, but it was a special occasion. and it was fun :-)

saturday night. i'm still writing that letter to a.. felt worn out and tired all day long. slept for three hours in the afternoon. worked on the diss. does this make any sense:

For this materialistic, 'affirmative' approach Deleuze and Guattari make use of terms from cartography: "[A] body is defined by a longitude and a latitude" (TP 260). The longitude expresses the material traits of a given body, it is defined as "the sum total of the material elements belonging to it under given relations of movement and rest, speed, slowness" (TP 260), whereas the latitude expresses its 'energetic' capacities and is defined as "the sum total of the intensive affects it is capable of at a given power or degree of potential" (TP 260). Therefore the body is "[n]othing but affects and local movements, differential speeds. The credit goes to Spinoza for calling attention to these two dimensions of the Body [...]" (TP 260). In his article "Ethology: Spinoza and Us" Deleuze describes the two vectors that define the body in more detail and, as a general statement about the terms, he claims very elementarily that "[t]hese two propositions appear to be very simple; one is kinetic and the other dynamic" (Ethology 625).

wrote a mail to paula. listened to a soothing blumfeld song: "old nobody". on repeat. fixed myself something to eat and watched conan o'brien. hasn't been the most exciting day, but that's okay. plan for tomorrow: gym. start the subchapter on the body without organs. finish the letter to a.. maybe have a coffee with blaine and talk with him about the letter. go to bed early.

spent most of the day at the office. thomas was there and we were preparing things for the new semester which will start on monday :-(

went home at four, went to the gym, went shopping. now: stupid tv. i'm too tired to think or work - of course in the best of all cases the 'or' should be an 'and'.

- later - 

i can't sleep. it's the middle of the night. this evening, a bright orange moon was hanging over the road that leads downtown. it made me remember paula's last mail: "happy birthday to you, who must have hung the orange sliver of a western moon low on the horizon last night as i was driving home from sioux city, because you were the first person i thought of when i saw it."

i'm missing her, even though i've never met her.listening to efterklang, a band from iceland i think. actually i wanted to finish that letter to a. tonight. hm, it's awkward to always abbreviate her name, so i'll just call her anne from now on.

i have to work tomorrow, have to work on the theory chapter. sigh. i wanted to make the reader for the seminar which will start on tuesday, but guess what: the xerox-machine was broken. and it has been since two days. nobody cared to fix it. i only found this out today, and i was furious! i mean we're just a week-end away from the start of the courses and the seminars, and nobody cares to call the repair-team and get the bloody machine working again! our secretaries (whose job it would have been to look after the equipment) really suck big time! we're one of the biggest departments of the biggest university in the entire country and we don't even have a working photocopier. sigh.

in other news: it's my sister's birthday today. not that this would matter for the plot or the development of the characters involved in this blog, but i thought i might mention it anyway.

if you have a spare $14.99 buy this book. i started to read zurn the past couple of nights, and i was really impressed again. anyway, think i have to get some sleep now. hm, i'm really wondering whether anybody is reading this...

it's almost ten at night. spent most of the day revising the theory chapter. thomas hasn't mailed yet what he thinks of the pages i gave him yesterday. this morning, a. mailed. i mailed back. ten minutes later she called me. her voice was firm but i could sense that she was upset and nervous. we chatted for a couple of minutes, then she asked me:

"and, how are you feeling?"

and i said: "oh fine, it's just that my eyes ache from working at the pc all day long..."

"no" she said "i mean: how are you feeling about us?"

and i didn't really know what to say. so i decided to be honest and answered: "i'm missing you". which i do. what it all comes down to is: how can i tell her what i'm feeling without losing her. i know that she feels more for me than i for her, so how can we keep up a friendship in this far-from equilibrium system? maybe life isn't a matter of thermodynamics? what would you say, walt, old friend, wise friend, dead friend?

"the real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love"

is the line that my finger points to when i open my copy of leaves of grass on a random page.

sitting in a bar around the corner, trying to write a letter to a. that explains how i'm feeling. robbie williams is singing "no regrets" – and i feel like a sucker. i never learned how to say these things. it was always me who was left behind. it was always me who felt more than the other person. it was always me who got to hear: "but i don't". and now it's the other way around. and it's not much easier :-( i'm wearing my "deleuzian events" t-shirt, but even *that* doesn't make living less complex or manageable. and instead of writing the letter i'm updating the journal. petty escapism.

today i gave thomas the pages i have added to the theory chapter in the past weeks. at the beginning of the semester break he said that he wanted to have thirty pages. today i could only give him eleven. he wasn't amused. there was a moment of genuine disappointment that made its way onto his face. a trace, a hint and then he gained control and put on a smile again. so i told him that i had six or seven more pages about the body without organs almost finished. notlüge.

the semester will start on monday and i haven't prepared a thing. i haven't even made up my mind which texts we'll discuss in the "literary theory part 2" seminar. almost 60 students have enrolled. so it'll be quite a big seminar.

no news from a.. i wrote her an email yesterday but she hasn't replied yet. i knew it: i would screw it up and end up alone again. even though right now i feel that being alone is the best way to be, to quote edie brickell. i need time and concentration for the dissertation. i HAVE to finish it. the sooner the better. right now i almost feel as if it's going okay. i wish there were three more weeks of semester break. once the courses have started i guess that i won't really find the peace of mind and concentration to write any sensible things.

had my third beer and the letter to a. has grown. i have no idea whether i can *really* give it to her. maybe it is too honest and would hurt her too much. i don't have anybody i could show it to and discuss whether it would be a good thing to send it to her. blaine is her best friend, so i obviously cannot talk to him. and princess superstar is on vacation and won't return before the week-end.

i just realize that you have no idea whom i'm talking about because you don't know the old online journal. but then perhaps you don't really have to know to get an understanding of the situation. and why would you want, anyway?

when i came back from the gym tonight, instead of the usual procedure of taking a shower i poured myself a hot bath. when i lowered my body into the hot water, a wave of heat rushed over it and for a moment i thought that i would pass out. it was relaxing, though. the only light came from three candles and laurie anderson was singing "love among the sailors" on repeat. "did you think that was the way your world would end? hombres? sailors? comrades?" when i pulled the plug, the water was slowly vanishing and the tub filled with gravity. my arms and legs felt heavy and i hardly managed to stand up: my skin was literally steaming!

now it's a quarter past ten, outside the trees are making a hissing sound when they're pushed back and forth by the wind. i started to write a letter to a., explaining what i'm feeling and why. the problem is: i don't know what i'm feeling and why. i love her. i can surely say *that*. she is the most fascinating person i've met. we're often thinking the same things, having the same intuitions, the same ideas, the same commentaries. she is intelligent, witty, has a great sense of humor. she is creative and full of energy. she has a very distinct sense of style. so, what i simply don't get is: why am i not head over heels in love with her? why am i not passionate about her? why am i still thinking about bloody s.???! s. always brought me down, she was depressive, her personality was without contours - am i really that shallow that i only mourn for her lost body? am i so superficial that the memory of s.'s body will destroy a possible, great and fulfilling relationship with a.??