A Thousand Plateaus

boy, what a day. i walked around like a zombie on drugs and i'm glad that the day's over soon. only thirty minutes until mad about you and then it's off to dreamland. hopefully. i couldn't sleep last night. heaven knows why. but i was lying in bed, looking into the dark, and my body just refused to fall asleep, my mind didn't cooperate and stubbornly refrained from shutting down. the same thing happened to me last sunday night.

there's no real reason for this. it's not that i'm all nervous and excited about monday(s). i was even very much at peace with myself yesterday night, since i had managed to almost finish the Lee subchapter. so i *should* have fallen to sleep right away and wake up after eight hours of refreshing sleep. instead my mind was going on a marathon. and what's more: i had this weird voice in my head. no - i'm not going mental. but i have this peculiar tendency to keep voices from books alive in my head. i'm currently reading douglas coupland, and even though the action stops when i close the book the diction doesn't. there's this fake, would-be coupland voice in my head that is - in the first person singular - describing my life and commenting on what's happening. only that it's miles from being as witty and eloquent as the original.

so last night while i realized that i wouldn't be able to find a second of sleep in the next four hours i was describing my situation to an invisible readership as if it was a scene from a novel. actually it's fun. the sad part is that i keep forgetting everything immediately, so that all funny remarks and intelligent little sketches were lost in the dark. at one point i considered getting up again, booting the pc and making my miserable imitations part of the journal, but i thought: "hey, you'll fall asleep every minute. dreams are lurking just around the corner and they'll grab you faster than you can say 'unconscious'. well, i said 'unconscious' quite a few times last night.

it must have been about four or five in the morning when i finally tricked myself into a dreamless sleep which wasn't anything like refreshing. i woke up at eight, head heavy, and each and every bone in my body was aching. i decided not to get to work by bike but took the underground. when i arrived, thomas was already waiting for me.

"how are things?" he greeted me, and i just grumbled "you don't want to know" and we headed straight into the preparations for his lectures. he needed some film clips from the internet which i managed to download by tricking the browser, and during the process of transferring the files from my pc to his power-book (have i mentioned that he's an apple-fanatic?) i deleted all files that i had stored on the usb-stick so i had enough space for the video clips. unfortunately those were the texts i had written yesterday. thank god i still had a copy at home, but i had to say goodbey to the thought of finishing them at work, printing them, and giving them to thomas to get an expert's opinion.

in the afternoon the phone rang. it was princess superstar who was calling from her car on the way home. she stopped at the university, popped into the office and we had a coffee. everybody sees you're blown apart. everybody feels the wind blow.

one of the clips that thomas needed for his lecture on american melodramas of the 50s was the opening titles of douglas sirk's imitation of life. while we were cutting the respective scene we were both sipping our coffee, and we accidentally fell into a meaningful and semi-personal conversation. "so, how are things?" he asked. and i sighed and told him that anne had a new boy-friend and that i was pissed off that everybody seems to find a new love so easily and that it seems to be such an endless struggle for me. and when i stopped complaining we were just playing the final verse from the film's opening song in a loop and thomas said: "listen, listen carefully philipp: that's for you..." and mr. compassionate smiled in an incomprehensible way while the suave 50s frank sinatra sound-a-like voice was announcing: "without love, your life is just an imitation of life!"

and sometimes when i'm falling, flying, or tumbling in turmoil i say: oh, so this is what she means!

seven in the evening. i've just returned from the bar|café around the corner where i've been sitting for almost four hours working on the Dennis Lee subchapter. and i've almost finished it! it went really well! even though i had so much coffee that i'll probably won't sleep tonight.

while i was sitting there with my ibook i heard the princess's voice in the back of my head: "wherever we go, you always have a crush on the waitress!" which is a true enough observation. the reason is probably that waitresses are a sure bet. they *have* to be friendly. and they *have* to smile back at you. and you're in command: if you ask them to come over they will come over :-)

however this afternoon i was not trying to flirt with the waitress. at first, that is. but it was her who started when she asked me whether i was writing a term-apaper (at least she thought i was young enough to still be a student!). let's not discuss how things went from there. let's only say that my reaction was, well, semi-professional. i stuttered something about dissertation and that i could concentrate very well here and then i stopped and she looked at me and instead of continuing the conversation i only sort of chuckled and then turned back to the ibook. SHAME ON ME! i need to go to a camp and train how to behave and what to say.

anyway, this episode reminded me of some lyrics that are lying around somewhere and that i haven't used yet but which - i think - are quite nice:

my annoying habit of thinking about you
keeps me up and keeps me down
sitting by the river, sitting in some café
overtipping the waitress 'cause she smiled at me
she might have smiled at me

it's 23:42 as i begin to write this which is - let's be honest - not really a time to go home on a saturday night. but here i am, slightly drunk from having a beer with princess superstar. actually she, her prince and i wanted to go and see a movie (some italian-french award winning drama which was, as the papers said, an intellectual challenge. pft! as if *that's* what i need on a saturday night, an intellectual challenge! i want my hollywoodblockbusterpopcornandpeanutcrunchingcrowdfeelgoodcomedy) but when i arrived at the theater the tickets were all sold out. *what a pity!* so i called the princess on her mobile and she said: "wait a minute" and when she came back on she said: "okay, tim's staying home then. but i'll meet you at the bar in twenty minutes!" so she came downtown and we had a couple of beers and some tapas, which was nice.

at one point during the evening she reached over to take my mobile and said: "is this a new one?"
"well," i said "i'm sure you've seen it before"
and she skipped through my address book and shouted out:
"oh my god! you still have s.'s phone number? i'll delete it!"
and she did. she deleted s.'s number, and the number of s.'s mobile phone and the number of s.'s mother's phone.
"excuse me for a minute..." i said and went to the rest room.
when i came back princess superstar said:
"well, i have added her number again, just in case you're so desperate and missing her so much hat you just *have* to call her..."
and when i checked under s. there was an entry and it had the princess's phone number. which i thought was extraordinarily sweet. because i have called her two or three times in the middle of the night whene i was drunk and was missing s.; and instead of calling s. i called the princess. i was so moved that she put her phone number under s.'s name that i almost got up to give her a firm hug.

on my way back i considered to stop at some club and go dancing. i really hate sitting at home already when i'm feeling so flirtatious. "you know" the princess said tonight "you have really changed so much for the better! you look different. there's a glow around you..." but i don't really feel like hanging around alone in a club. and i have planned to go to the gym first thing in the morning and then finish the theory chapter. so it's probably better to get some sleep instead of getting drunk even more. but still it's frustrating somehow. do i feel like wasting my life? yes, sometimes i do.

dear rob,

it's a friday night, i'm home, i'm tired. had a busy day at work and when i returned i rushed to the gym immediately. now my whole body aches. i remember that day when you and daniel came by to visit me. it must have been over ten years ago. and you saw this book by laurie anderson lying on my desk. stories from the nerve bible. and you said: "wow! isn't that a great name for a band: the nerve bible?" and so we changed the name of our band and became the nerve bible. "what i mean by the nerve bible is, of course, the body" anderson wrote in the introduction. who would have guessed that, years later, my dissertation would be about postmodern conceptions of the body.

but i'm rambling. i'm listening to the last song we recorded together: "suture". it has a thousand guitars. when we taped it we were just starting to explore the advantages of hard disk recording. mind you, those were the 90s. if you consider what a giant leap recording programs, processors and pcs have made since, can you imagine what the opportunity of home recording systems are today?! it's amazing! you can do anything and the quality is mind-blowing. but this is something that you don't care about anymore.

"from over here" she says "it looks like you were laughing. it looks like you were loving me" while i switch channels i ask her "did you say 'me'? or did you say 't.v.'?"

i don't think that you would even recognize me anymore. i've moved to the big city. i've changed physically and i think i've really gotten old. sometimes it frightens me how old i've become. you haven't. but why i started this letter: when i was at the gym today i was listening to "cultural studies II". and it made me so happy. it made me so happy that i had to keep hard from crying. and it's always the same: when your brilliant underwater-guitar sets in during the last verse and escalates  into the height and climbs up and up and up in perfect pearls until it rains down into the chorus something in me unlocks and a million suns shine out of my head and my belly. "and i yelled: help me! because i can't stop being overjoyed!"

i'm missing you. i'm missing your creativity and your dead pan humor and your amazing, endless energy and enthusiasm. i have told you this before, but the day daniel called and said that you had died i had bought suzanne's "rosemary". and the final lines are:

"and all i know of you is in my memory | and all i ask is you remember me"

i just wanted to tell you that i'll remember you as long as i live.

from a mail to paula:

recently i try not to think too much about things that bug me. i hear from people everywhere who fall in love and meet their new lovers on the street or in galleries. just like that. effortlessly. i try to concentrate on the work: i arrive early at the office and stay late, and then when i get home i rush to the gym and make myself so tired that i don't feel anything anymore when i fall into bed. well, not really. there are traces of things left: memories and fossiled smiles and crumbs of kisses that stay with me whatever i do. and your voice. and your voice. and your voice. the only thing i don't want to forget.

no bitter feelings, though. (wer's glaubt wird selig!) got two lurkers cd requests today :-) busy, busy days. thomas is pushing the limits of our patience and our work force to the far edges of the universe. today i simultaneously gave my seminar and supervised the technical equipment for his seminar on 'textual topologics' - i tried to connect his powerbook to the wlan so he could show some internet-sites, but of course it didn't work. i literally ran back and forth from my classroom to his to the guys at the computer center who just shrugged their shoulders. i guess my class thought i'd gone totally nuts now: i was popping my head through the door from time to time, seeing whether the group-work i left them with was going alright and then rushed off again. tomorrow's going to be a busy day as well: first i have to give a two hour lecture on new media and after that a two hour seminar on deleuze and guattari and their relationship to new media. so it's teaching terror from nine to one. thank god it'll all be in german :-)

one of my favorite paul simon songs is playing: "the smartest people in the world had gathered in los angeles / to analyze our love affair / and finally unscramble us . . . they say the left side of the brain / dominates the right / and the right side has to labor through / the long and speechless night." i love the idea that in a thousand years they will unearth either my or your computer and find all these mails. will they understand what was going on? it will go into history books as the tinsel-mystery. weeping future people reading print-outs of our mails in museums, wondering how we could have been so close and yet have never met each other.

met with princess superstar this afternoon and we went out to have an ice cream, even though it is fucking freezing cold outside. so i took the tram to the southern part of the city and we went to this café that allegedly has the best ice cream in town. it was a small place, run down, all tables smoking area, the paint on the wall brittle and dirty. it was okay though. i felt a little uncomfortable because the tables stood very close so everybody could follow our conversation just like we could follow everybody else's. i'm not used to this, but apparently in a rather big city like cologne people don't seem to care so much. in bielefeld i would never have had a private conversation in such an environment because everybody overhearing me might have been the friend of a friend.

anyway, the princess said that i should contact anne and at least write her back a couple of lines. i had not reacted to her card from januaryl 2nd in which she told me that she's having a new boyfriend. the only thing i did was giving blane a bag with her clothes that had still lingered in my apartment. blane told me later: "it was very strange, when i gave her theclothes. she looked through the bag, again and again, and i thought 'well, she's really checking whether everything is there!' but then she looked up and said with a disappointed face: 'no card?!??'"

for some reason my internet connection isn't working. which pisses me off. i feel cut off from the world. the princess said:
"so, tell me all about the women!"
"which women"
"the ones you're dating"
"i ain't dating no women!
"but you should!"
"well, tell me more!"
"why don't you meet any?"
"how the hell should i know?"
"but you *are* going out, don't you?"
"well, yes, but going out doesn't mean meeting people..."
"you should go to big parties! it's not so good to go to a club with your friends. parties are much better to get to know people! you have to go to parties!"
"okay, honey: parties. like the one of...whom???"
"hmm, i don't know. go to parties! that's what i'm telling you!"

i was at the hairdresser on friday. he is called frank and he told me that
"... i have a new boyfriend!"
"really?" i said
"yes!"
"how did you meet?"
"i was on my bike on the way to the post-office and he was walking right in front of me so i was ringing and we saw each other, but i wasn't really looking for someone because, you know, i had just come out of a relationship and i wasn't ready for anything new, i just wanted to be alone..."
"i see"
"but when i came out of the post office he had waited there and asked me if i wanted to have a coffee with him..."
so maybe the trick is not to force it, not to look too desperately, but to simply let it happen. or maybe the trick is to turn gay.

i would be more relaxed and easy going if there wasn't the panic that i'm missing so much. i'm getting older each day and each day that i spend alone seems to be wasted, a day that's lost. i mean i've wasted so much time already in my youth. my entire youth has been boring and depressingly uneventful. this panic is fueled and somehow parallel to the fear of not getting my thesis written in time. i've wasted so much time in this respect as well, being too lazy, concentrating on other, not so important things. and now it's catching up with me and biting me in my lazy ass.

do you know those days when there are songs within you but they won't come out? when you feel that you have to express something but you don't know how, you don't know the ways? i'm hooked on another tracy chapman song today:

Should be happy to be loved
Happy to be
Unburdened by the thought
I could still be lonely
I think you're the one
Everyone agrees
But some can see the face of love
And turn away in disbelief

Every time we get close
I just run
And the wind on my face
Last rays of the sun
Shine on my skin
My heart slow me down
Is all that I can feel
All that I can feel
 
Should be happy to be loved
Happy to be
With someone who knows
And understands me
I think you're the one
Everyone agrees
But some can touch the hand of love
And pull away in disbelief

Every time we get close
I just run
And the wind on my face
Last rays of the sun
Shine on my skin
My heart slow me down
Is all that I can feel
All that I can feel
 
Should be happy to be loved
Happy to be
Possessed by nothing but
A heart that's chosen freely
I think you're the one
Everyone agrees
But some can feel the grace of love
And walk away in disbelief

 All that I can feel

saturday night. most parts of my body are aching from spending the majority of this week's evenings at the gym. you know, i really surprised myself in this respect. when i started back in april last year i would never have thought that it's getting so addictive. the addiction has three components.

1. physical work out is an excuse for not working out mentally. i've said this before. it's easier to wreck your body than it is to wreck your brain. at least for me. so spending two hours at the gym and then being totally worn out and tired at the end of the day gives me the illusion of having accomplished something while it simultaneously gives me an excuse for not sitting at the pc in the evening and write on the thesis.

2. i can finally affirm, accept and buy into cultural stereotypes of beauty. there is some dark side in me that loves to surrender to the super-ego of culture that hails fascist body icons. it's easier to follow the call and try to shape your body accordingly (even though this is an ever impossible aim) than to resist it and hang on to the idea that beauty is only skin deep and that true beauty radiates from within.

3. it's really fun sometimes. it can be a very intense experience. i think this is based on the fact that my practice of listening to great music while working out creates a simultaneous distribution of culturally and bodily generated endorphin: there are these two intensities that give me a high: on the one hand the high of corproeal exhaustion (purely physical but feeding back into the psyche) and then the high of listening to music that sometimes moves me so much that it is beyond my understanding (purely mental but feeding back into the physical).

what else can i report: i learned this week that a girl i had an emotional investment in some time ago is single again. i'm meeting her sometimes because she is a friend of blane. so i'm wondering how this new situation will influence our relation because i know that she wasn't uniterested in me back then. the book that thomas and i are editing is getting along. it's a monograph written by a scholar from london and thomas is publishing it in his series. last week he made me officially co-editor of the series :-) which is a nice token of appreciation for my work.

tomorrow i'll meet with princess superstar. also i'll have to prepare the seminar. and on wednesday i'll have to give the annual new media lecture. listening to a couple of tracy chapman songs - i used to be quite a fan back in the late 80s, even though i always had problems with the lyrics which were a little too straightforward for my taste. so right now i've got this four or five songs from her recent cds that i really like. there is one - i think called "before easter" - that i sampled the drums from for a new songidea that i had. the other song is called "the promise", and the lyrics are really borderlinish. but it has a great string arrangement. and it expresses my present emotional state more than i'd like to admit.

Remembering
Your touch
Your kiss
Your warm embrace
I'll find my way back to you
Please say you'll be waiting

Together again
It would feel so good to be
In your arms
Where all my journeys end
If you can make a promise
If it's one that you can keep
I vow to come for you
If you wait for me  

also the 200 lurkers map has grown :-) i was really surprised and delighted to see two new entries recently. random fact: i've switched my email program from netscape's messenger to mozilla thunderbird. bought eleanor rigby by douglas coupland because i realized how much i like his writings when we were discussing a text from polaroids from the dead in the seminar this week. exchanged my profile photo: i managed to come up with an acceptable result after applying every image-altering effect that corel photo paint offers.

the day's over. did stupid things like writing emails and trying to figure out how 'myspace.com' works (for the lurkers). here's the result. actually i already got four or five very nice comments and compliments. played the solo set. it's about 70 minutes long, which is perfect. i've been carrying around the demo cd for two weeks now but i didn't have the guts to actually stop by the club, drop it there and ask for a gig.

bought cookies. had a cup of coffee. watched the spongebob squarepants movie which isn't that bad after all. i didn't know that Scarlett Johansson is lending her voice to one of the characters. also there are quite a lot of cool bands involved: wilco, motorhead, the flaming lips and ween.

so, plan for tomorrow: get up in time. go to the gym. prepare the seminar - we'll discuss douglas coupland's [three cheers for canada :-)] essay on 'denarration' - and then meet princess superstar in the afternoon.

and you know that some day
there will be a new power within you
but you dread all the days in between (kari bremnes)

saw this on invincible summer and couldn't resist.

01. Your name plus "y"
whyworry

02. Two feelings at the moment?
headache. melancholia.

03. What are you listening to right now?
tanita tikaram. of all people!

04. A part of a song lyric that's in your mind:
there is water at the bottom of the ocean.

05. Describe where you are right now?
at home. just right out of bed. messy hair and still wearing shorts & t-shirt (therefore feeling quite chilly).

06. The highlight of your week?
the night out yesterday? or maybe meeting a friend tomorrow. listening to michelle shocked's "come a long way" while working out.

07. What are you craving to have right now?
small scale and realistic answer: a toothbrush, a cup of coffee & some cookies.
large scale and unrealistic answer: world peace, a pair of arms and having a gig tonight.

08. Any unforgettable childhood memory?
playing cops & robbers in the backyard with my sister and my cousins. kissing my elementary school girl-friend :-)

09. A not-so-good childhood memory?
having a violent argument with my dad.

10. What are your nicknames?
don't have one. suggestions are welcomed.

11. Your three plans for tomorrow?
work. work. have an ice cream with princess superstar.

12. Your three plans for today?
take a shower. answer emails. fill up the fridge.

13. Are you thinking of someone right now?
you bet.

14. Ever gotten drunk before?
don't really get the question. what does 'before' refer to? i suppose it doesn't simply mean 'in the past'. so the question is before what? since in western culture the 'unspeakable' is mostly connected to sex i assume that that the missing part of the ellipsis is "having sex" i'd have to answer: no. or 'not in order to'.

16. Are you single?
yes

17. Say something to the person who posted this before you?
i always liked that your name is an anagram for 'heal'.

18. Mary has her little lamb. What do you want?
a dissertation. did i already mention world peace?

19. What colour are your eyes?
brown-greenish so i have been told.

20. Say anything you like to whoever is reading your answers.
send love, food or money!

21. Are you feeling hungry?
YES

22. Who do you miss right now?
is this a trick question?

23. Last friend you talked to online?
susanne

24. What do you like about night?
quietness. soft light. possibilities. dreams.

25. If you were on a farm what would you want to see?
seinfeld. mad about you. conan o'brien.

26. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
a paleontologist.

27. Last gift?
that i received? my boss invited me for breakfast earlier this week.

28. Did you like it?
yummy!

29. Do you play an instrument?
yes sir.

30. What song did you last hear?
there's music playing constantly. the last song that affected me was a very hokey song by tracy chapman that made me cry. don't even recall the title. something with "if you wait i will return".

31. Your good luck charm?
my catherine tekakwitha medallion. my robert lee morris knife pendant that i bought in new york and that i should wear more often. there was a time when i would wear it every day.

32. Person you hate most?
large scale: george bush. small scale: myself

33. Who makes you laugh the most?
mostly a group of people.

34. What makes you smile?
intensity.

35. Who has a crush on YOU?
if i knew THAT i wouldn't certainly be sitting here.

36.Who do YOU have a crush on?
suzanne vega