A Thousand Plateaus

post concert depression. as usual. i had forgotten that this happens, so it hit me pretty unprepared this morning. after the concert princess superstar and i met with a couple of people and i was home by three in the morning. we went to this bar that is around the block from where s. is living. and i had to think about her all night. i had to think about her during the concert as well. the last song that laurie did ended with a line that went something like this: "sometimes i cry for you. and when the tears fall from my left eye it's because i love you so much. and when the tears fall from my right eye it's because i cannot bear you" – and i totally lost it. the lights, the images, the violin, the voice...

we also met annie. which was nice but, well, unmoving in a way. i didn't feel increased heart-rate or anything. it felt like meeting an old friend, and it's pobably best that way.

i was searching through my box of old cds yesterday night because i was looking for a cd with sound-samples that i wanted to use for working on "the only guest". and i came across a cd that said "photos" and WOW! i found some gems there. the pictures must be from the mid nineties. and among them was the worst picture *ever* of me, and due to my good mood today (LAURIE! LAURIE! LAURIE!) i'm gonna share it with you. have a good laugh.

yesterday night annie called. we hadn't talked for half a year but i felt pretty comfortable talking to her. she will also be at blane's birthday party next month so i mailed he and asked her whether we should have a coffee before that so that the situation wouldn't be too awkward at the party. that's why she called and we fixed a date next week and then she said that she'll be also be at the concert tonight. so maybe i'll meet her there. which is fine. i think i'm looking forward to talking to her again. also this would be a chance for princess superstar and annie to meet, because they never have so far and i'd really like to know what the princess thinks of her.

from a mail to paula: 

i'm sitting at the café again. it's a wednesday night, about eight pm, and it's really much like in "Tom's Diner". the café is right behind a church and the massive brick building is towering across the street. i just relaized that i've never been in that church. it's a catholic church, anyway. people are going by and they're watching themselves in the windowpane, adjusting hair or collar, not noticing me behind the semitransparent glass.

for some reason i'm hooked on one particular la-song that i didn't pay much attention to so far. it's on "bright red" and called "beautiful pea green boat" – the lyrics sound like some children's folk-song. the music is very strange: you have two 4/4 and then one 5/4. and the accordeon makes it sound like a tango. very weird. it keept playing in my head all day long. and all the time i have these stupid lyrics in my head which i sometimes say out aloud when i think that i'm alone: "oh lovely pussy, pussy my love, what a wonderful pussy you are..."

[insert my ramblings about spring fever from earlier today] maybe i'm just not perceptive enough. maybe i don't have an antenna for these things. i also realized that i'm unable to look at someone. i mean, obviously i can look at someone. but i cannot answer a stare or a smile. when i'm looking at a woman who catches my interest for some reason or another, and i see her looking back, i turn my eyes away immediately. i feel caught. i cannot smile back or react to her reaction to my initial look. argh! i really, really wish that gender-roles were different. why can't you girls just simply walk up to a guy and say hi?!?

you know what i'm dreaming about – and i'm really halluzinating here – is this: i'm at a bar. and suddenly this gorgeous woman comes up to me (and she looks amazingly like s.) and she stops right in front of me, looks into my eyes and then she's saying with a voice full of dingity: "I bind some poems to my shoes so that when i look down while walking, i'll think of you and beauty and perfection and derangement. i go missing in my own life." i don't see this happen, though :-)

i seriously ask myself whether there's something wrong with me. i'm meeting so many people each day, i've been out so much during the past year. and still i didn't meet, or even see, someone who blew my mind. who makes me go. WOW! are my 'standards' too high? don't i look carefully enough? what's wrong with me? blane is falling in and out of love every other day. it seems like i'm some kind of chemical element that's really slow to react with others. blane is explosive. i need so much heat-input to fuse, to glow, to let the atoms jump from one level to the next and make them emit light. and on the other hand, it happens so fast. the intensity. the sparkling skin. the watery eyes. typing a line of poetry like yours quoted above. listening to a song. but there's hardly a human being that makes me feel this way.

the last time i remember the same emotional reaction was when i saw "bridget jones 2" in a movie theater with s.. i know, it's a crappy film, but we just wanted to have a silly, carfefree night. she was having trouble with her ma-thesis, i with my phd thesis. she probably already had problems with me, but she never told me. and we were sitting in the dark, next to each other, and suddenly i heard this laughter, and i turned my head and i realized that it was s. laughing, and that i had forgotten that she could laugh this way, she was looking at the screen, totally immersed in the movie, she wasn't 'herself', she was neither with me nor with the rest of the world, everything around her had fallen away and she was simply enjoying the film and she laughed wholeheartedly and loudly and i looked at her for one minute and then for another and she looked so relaxed and happy and i looked at her and looked at her and i thought: "i love this woman" and then i had to cry soundlessly. not because i was sad, simply because she radiated such an intensity, i felt so much drawn to her that my entire body went nuts and that tears shot into my eyes. i would have given my life for her in this moment in which she was the most important thing in the world – she was totally THERE. even though she wasn't, because she was almost unconscious, far away in the fictional world. but she was THERE. i never told her how i felt that moment. and just now there's a cover version of kate bush's "this woman's work" playing and while i'm writing this someone's singing "all the things that you needed from me / all the things that you wanted from me / all the things i should have given but i didn't / OH DARLING MAKE IT GO AWAY! JUST MAKE IT GO AWAY NOW!!!!!"

laurie is singing "one white whale" on repeat in the office. the window is open, birds are singing. it's 5:14 pm and i'm almost the last person who's still here. all of a sudden the trees have turned green. from one day to another they have changed. blaine was talking about spring fever' today - he said that he has noticed that people are more flirtatious, that the air is erotically charged, that everybody is more open, that people are looking, touching, flirting. and i thought: "hm, i wonder what planet he is from. because that is nothing that happens on *mine*!"

 sometimes i think that i *am* a kind of alien. i don't know: i've just turned down an amourous adventure and here i find myself longing for one.

bad night. woke early and couldn't get to sleep again. had nightmares. well, s.ightmares in fact :-(

sunday night. spent the week-end rewriting the first pages of the chapter on The Favorite Game and watching more seinfeld. also went to the gym yesterday and today. it's weird, and i never thought that i would ever come to this: but the days that i don't have been to the gym i tend to feel really bad. it's almost like i compulsively have to go there and sweat each day, otherwise i feel really, hm, unsatisfied.

mia commented: "hey, what about the old "you don't have to be rich to be my girl"?"

you must mistake me with some short, funky, aristocratic guy. *that* has never been my policy. also, if you want to rule my world, being cool would in fact be an advantage.

mia also commented: "i like your idea of an academic sitcom - some friends and i used to rave on a similar thing. only that this - more soapish version - also included charlotte-simmons-like erotic entanglements *gg*"

ok, i let you in on a little secret: the number of erotic entanglements at the english seminar wouldn't even give you enough material to cover the time between the opening credits and the first commercial-break. :-) and this already includes the mating squirrels you can see from the office window.

I'M GOING TO SEE LAURIE ANDERSON NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

mia commented: ":-> why, are you interested...?"

well, considering the turn that my recent amorous misadventure took i probably should refrain from trying to force my luck. i mean, if she's intelligent, gorgeous, funny, sexy, rich, intensive and into neurotic, underpaid middle-aged guys who are unwilling to commit to serious realtionships you can give her my email :-). no, not really.

slow day today. over easter i downloaded a couple of seinfeld episodes and i cannot tell you how much fun i have watching them. i think it's because i recognize so many conversations and absurd situations. and i remembered my old plan of writing an "academic" sitcom where the protagonist is a phd student working at, well, let's say the english seminar. it would be hilarious. emmy-award winning material! i also recorded a trial version of "the only guest". i don't have a chorus melody yet :-( but i think the song has some potential.

monday afternoon susanne and i met for a coffee, and we talked until late into the evening and then konnie joined us and we went out until half past two in the morning. i love to talk to intersting and creative people. susanne and konnie definitely belong to this group. it's just great to talk to them. like with princess superstar. or paula. or leyla or thomas. today during a coffee break leyla, thomas and i were sitting in the sun in front of the university. and leyla was mentioning her plans to do a seminar on "walking" in american culture. so we sort of brainstormed and came up with all sorts of things: thoreau and auster, dead man walking and the marathon man. and suddenly thomas said: "you know what's the sign in the window of the cobbler in hollywood says? - 'These boots are made for Walken'!" okay, maybe nobody else would want to watch a sitcom with such weird humor, but leyla and i were cracking up. the other day we were at a tappas bar with thomas, and there was a plate with calamari, and thomas took one and carefully shelled off the coating until he was playing with the bare, white squid-meat ring. nobody was minding him really because we were all engaged in some discussion so when i looked across the table at thomas he was just holding the ring in front of his face. and he twisted one side by 180° so that the food looked like the figure 8 leaning to the side or: a squid symbol for infinity. and he said to me through all the different voices and heated conversations going on at the table: "you know, these calamri are *infinitely* tasty!" and he ate the thing.

yes: it's a kindergarten. but on a high level.

two conflicting states: on the one hand i'm listening to joni mitchell's "man from mars"- which is brilliantly sad:

"i fall apart everytime i think of you, swallowed by the dark, there is no center to my life, no grace in my heart. man from mars : this time you went too far"

and all the time some weird, pulsing, underwater-orchestra instruments, unearthly.

"i call and call. the silence is so full of sounds, you're in them all. i hear you in the water and the wiring in the wall. man from mars : this time you went too far"

and on the other hand i had such a joyful moment on the treadmill this afternoon. i was listening to they might be giants' "make a little birdhouse in your soul". for some reason i had the chorus of the song in my head a couple of days ago. i don't really know why - especially since i've never really listened to tmbg or own a cd. so i downloaded the song and listened to it on repeat while working out. and at first i had no clue what it is about. it sounded like just random lines attached to each other. but after the seventh or eighth time i had a sort of epiphany and i suddenly realized that it's not just some stupid rambling but that there's an actual story in the song:

I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well
It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells
So the room must listen to me
Filibuster vigilantly
My name is blue canary one note* spelled l-i-t-e
My story's infinite
Like the Longines Symphonette it doesn't rest

 I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am

There's a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts
Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels it's always near

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am 
 
it is of course about a nightlight shaped like a canary. and i don't know why, but the fact that somebody wrote such a great song about a nightlight shaped like a canary and has given it a voice filled me with joy. perhaps i'm deranged. perhaps i'm a little strange. but i was grinning like a cheshire cat while the sweat was pouring down my face.

thought about the fact that i'm still affected by s. - which is weird, because lack is a negative desire. it's a lacanian desire and not one of positive forces. still, i should see the advantages : i can use it as an indicator to find someone whose intensitiy is stronger than the one that s. still exerts.

i got 200 lurkers praise via myspace.com. this time by a girl from edmonton, alberta, canada (http://www.myspace.com/perspectives). hm, i *think* that leah is from edmonton as well. just a weird coincidence.

mia commented: "by the way: a few days ago i get to know a girl who, in a corner of my mind, made me think of you. she's a redhead and is called jana... i don't know if she has a boyfriend, but she studies here too."

LOL! is this an offer to set me up?

leah commented: "are these conversations generally in english? i always wonder if you're days are spent mostly talking english or german."

unfortunately the only time that i speak english is in my classes. all other conversations are in german. most people in germany have english as a second language, but no one would really practice it unless there's a native-speaker of english in the group that doesn't know any german. i do write in english a lot but i don't talk so much. which affects my fluency, actually. i feel uncomfortable talking in english and i always feel awkward when i have to do so.

so all the conversations here have been translated from german into english. which is quite useful to get some distance and to realize that the mere act of writing something down means that you're fictionalize it. especially if you write it down in a foreign language.  

ok, here's the latest on kathy and me. we went out last saturday and we met in a bar where you can get lots of differently flavored vodka. yummy. i had some, she had none because she doesn't drink. so we talked, and then we talked some more, and from time to time she touched me because she was pointing to a pattern on my jeans or some writing on my t-shirt. i tried to be as reserved and 'neutral' as possible without being impolite and most of the time i sat there with folded arms.

on the way home (she is living close to the bar and my underground station was half-way) we walked side by side. the streets were full of people because it's a quarter with many bars and clubs. and each time i saw a blond, tall woman i felt a pain in my chest. it was as if s. was following me like a ghost.

when we reached the underground station kathy said to me: "would you mind if i kissed you? otherwise i'd really scold myself." i said "no" and we kissed. french kiss, that is. it was, well, ok, but it didn't make my knees tremble or my mind blur. [i love this description of a sexual scene in cohen's "Favorite Game" in which he simply states about the protagonist: "His mind broke into postcards".] so, my mind did not break into postcards, and, honestly, i cannot even tell if it ever did when i kissed anybody else. not even s..

anyway, we kissed, and my train came, and i drove home and kathy walked home and that was that.

the next day she called me. her brother had given her his ipod but since she doesn't have a working computer she asked whether i could assist her copying some mp3s from my ibook to her ipod. i said ok and we arranged that i would visit her at home the following wednesday after work, which was yesterday.

so, i went there, and she has a nice apartment, the interior decoration is very tasteful (not that i knew anything about interior decoration) and i felt comfortable. after we had mp3ed some cds and transferred the files to the ipod, she leaned over, turned my head, and kissed me. at first i returned the kiss, but when i realized she was pulling me down on the sofa. i leaned back a little and said "maybe that's not such a good idea..."

i think i was scared. and it was not just the fear or the feeling of discomfort to get intimate with someone for the first time. and yes - i *did* find her attractive and sexy. but i was afraid of the consequences. i had told her before in a mail very overtly that i cannot have a 'real' relationship right now. when she asked why i told her that it was because of my thesis. that i needed all my time and energy for the work right now and that i could not be bothered with building up a relationship.

i know this sounds hard, but that's exactly what i feel right now. i enjoy the freedom of not being together with someone. i can go to the gym four nights a week, i can work at the week-ends and i don't have to have a bad conscience that i'm neglecting someone. i made the bad experience with anke that i always felt committed and obliged to be with her, to spend time together, to call her.

this is the one side. the other side is that i know myself: i just *search* for a reason not to sit down and work. and a new relationship is a good reason. i would use it to neglect the thesis and instead of reading or working spend time with kathy. and i just cannot afford to 'waste' any more time.

anyway, kathy's reaction towards my argument that i cannot have a relation because of my work was: "why? i don't get it! why should your work be a hindrance?" and this was *exactly* the kind of reaction i didn't want to put up with. because i immediately started to justify myself and to explain something that cannot be explained because it is causally linked to my twisted mind. and in my head i anticipated phone conversations such as this one:
me: "honey, i can't see you tonight..."
kathy: "why?"
me: "because i still have to work, i want to finish this paragraph on 'becoming'..."
kathy: "i don't see why you can't finish it tomorrow. or tonight even. what's one little paragraph? finish it and then come over!"
me: "ok"

and the other thing she said [for real, not just in my imagination] was: "why don't you want to have a relation? you could at least try. we could have quite a good relation if you try hard..." and even if this was said half jokingly the aspect of "trying hard" was exactly what put me off. i don't want to try hard. i want something easy, carefree, floating, low-maintenance. something that gives me energy instead of taking it.

even though she did not understand why my work rules out a relation for me presently, she had sort of accepted it and had written in a mail: "ok, at least i now know what i'm in for." so i thought it was clear that a) i don't want a relationship and that b) kathy understood that she will not have a relationship with me.

all these things went through my head when i kissed her yesterday night and i realized that i could not go further because i would commit myself to something that i don't want. it would have meant dealing for a long time with a difficult situation for having 30 minutes of fun. well, 15 at most in my case.

and the other thing was that i remembered my being-together with anke and how much it was overshadowed by s., even the intimate moments. well, not really by s., but by the mnemonic presence of her hair, her lips, her smell and her breasts. as sylvia plath asks: "once one has seen god what is the remedy?" and i knew that if i slept with kathy i would leave early in the morning when she was still asleep and never call her again.

so that's why i said: "maybe that's not such a good idea..." and she leaned back and there was hurt in her eyes. "why?" she asked. and i said "i can't have a relation right now..." and she stood up and went into the kitchen. when i followed her after a couple of minutes she was leaning by the sink, smoking. the moon shone onto the stone-tiles and the window was open. i leaned next to her. her eyes were red and tired and her lips pursed. "i don't get it," she said "why is your work such an obstacle!" i tried to explain once more but she didn't understand it.

and then i added, more to myself than to her: ".. and that's just one of the reasons." and she looked up and asked "what?". "well, i don't know how to put it, but i'm still thinking about some ex-girlfriend." and this really shocked her. "why haven't you mentioned this earlier?" "uh, well" i stuttered "i thought that it was pretty unsexy to talk about one's ex-partners on a date..." "but that's important. it's important that you're still thinking about her. because it means that a relationship is impossible. at least for me. i'm not going to get involved with someone who is still thinking about his ex-girlfriend..." and i thought: but haven't you listened to me? i don't *want* a relationship!! so obviously kathy had hoped all along the way that she somehow would change my mind or that i wasn't really serious about my reasons.

if she hadn't said this i might have even followed her into the bedroom under the condition that whatever would happen in the next minutes would not bind us closer than we already were. but her reaction made me realize that i had made the right decision. and then i know that i'm not cool enough to have emotionally detached sex. i would either fall in love with the person if she didn't love me. or, if she loved me (and i more and more have the suspicion that kathy does or did) i would feel indebted and obliged.

well, i guess the *real* point of this long story is this: i don't love her. i think. the bad thing is: i don't even know what love feels like anymore. i only know what not-love feels like. or missing. i know that the feeling of missing s. is stronger than my emotions for kathy. i don't feel like calling her at the end of the day. i don't think about her when i wake up in the morning. i'm not making music compilations for her. i haven't introduced her to any of my friends.

i feel comfortable when i'm with her, and it's fun to be with her. and it's flattering that someone is actually willing to have sex with me - this is not an everyday invitation for me. but maybe it *is* more like a friendship. even though i do find her attractive and i could imagine very well getting laid. but, and this is just a small observation but important nevertheless: i don't even remember her smell. she did not smell. even when i kissed her and we hugged.

what it comes down to: she does not affect me like s. had. she is not as intensive as i remember s. (to be). kathy is no haecceity. s. was. i think jana was, too. anke wasn't.

if i will meet someone who affects me then i won't think twice about having a relationship. then i won't think twice about whether my work or that person is more important. then i won't think twice about consequences because i will embrace the consequences. my only fear is that i might not meet such an intensity again.

and so the answer to sylvia's question is: the remedy is another god.

baby, i've been waiting
i've been waiting night and day
i didn't see the time
i waited half my life away
there were lots of invitations
and i know you sent me some
but i was waiting
for the miracle to come.

i know you really loved me
but, you see, my hands were tied
i know it must have hurt you
it must have hurt your pride
to stand beneath my window
with your bugle and your drum
while i was waiting
for the miracle to come

- leonard cohen, "waiting for the miracle to come"

from the conversation yesterday night:

kathy: "do you have a middle name?"

me: "no..."

kathy: "do you know how you would have been called if you were a girl?"

me: "no, i don't think my parents had a 'plan-b'... at least they never told me. how about you? did your parents ever tell you what your name would have been if you were a boy?"

kathy: "no. but if my older brother had been a girl they would have called him 'jana'..."