A Thousand Plateaus

bad day for everything. went to the gym after i had cleaned the hallway. *nerv!* in the afternoon i continued to work on "stubborn life" while my bad conscience sat by the other side of the table, drumming his fingers, mumbling the old mantra "latin, diss, latin, diss, latin, diss" – it's not a good day to create anyway. i'm in one of these moods when everything you do or have ever done sounds profane and stupid. listened all afternoon to ani difranco's "as is" – partly because i've sampled the drums from this song. it's so perfect! so transparent and rhythmical and well, simply great. even though it has a very simple melody and guitar riff which are basically repeated all the time. so i listened to this, and then came back to what i already had recorded, and it sounded lame and boring and uninspired. i'm missing the band to flesh out the songs.

then in the evening i got a text message from alice:
in the village – your sticker is stuck.

:o)

read caesar at the café at night, but left relatively early. when i went to the bar to pay, gorgeous victoria leaned over the counter, stretching her delicate, braless upper body towards me, her porcelain face shimmering in the warm café lights:
"phil! you're leaving already?"
"victoria! yes, i do. got to get up rather early tomorrow."
"but tomorrow is a sunday! when do you got to get up?"
"half past seven."
"why's that?"
"phew, that's a long story."
"then cut it short."
"i'm gonna talk to someone in the states, and, you know, the time difference..."
she looked at me puzzled for some time.
"but..." she started to protest "when my friend julius [*rollseyes* here we go again!!!] was abroad it was in the middle of the night *here* when he called me. when it's morning here it must be the middle of the night over there! that doesn't make any sense..."
"oh, it makes sense!" i smiled and went home.

got up early after a short night. showered and started to do a round of domestic work : the washing, the dishes, vacuum cleaning, shopping groceries. when i was on my way back from the supermarket a car drove by : it was caro and she was making a veritable honk-concert to greet me, shocking the living daylights out of me and everybody who stood close by – i almost wet my pants. then i went to the office, corrected two very, very bad term papers :-( and had office hours. later latin-class. the first thing i did, thought, when i entered the building was checking my pigeon hole. got mail.

spent a large part of last night with excessive chatting again. at one point alice wrote:
"now, is this mild flirting?" alluding to the journal entry from a couple of days ago.
"no baby" i answered "that's foreplay!"
she told me that she was going to n.y. for her brother's birthday. and this afternoon she sent a text message saying: "hey phil! i'm sitting in tom's restaurant!"
and i remembered how i had been to n.y. in 1995, sitting in the same diner. i had breakfast there at least three times – the french toast special - looking out onto the street and feeling, hm, strangely comfortable and familiar.

alice suggested that we might try out "skype 'n' type" this week-end.
"what's that?" i asked her.
"it's skype for shy people" she explained "you switch on the microphone while you chat via msn, hearing the other one breathe and snicker only. no talking!"

it has started to rain badly. there are bugs traveling up and down the big windows of the café, the rain keeps falling to the rhythm of the piano in wilco's "on and on and on". jodie comes to my table and brings an offering of a big bowl of coffee latte, complete with sweets and cookies.
"made with love" she whispers.
yes.
love.

Please don’t cry
This world of words and meanings makes you feel
outside
Something that you feel already
deep inside
You've denied
Go ahead and cry

On and on and on we’ll stay together yeah
On and on and on
On and on and on

You and I will stay together yeah
You and I will try to make it better yeah

weird moment this evening. the subway was stopping at the station, people got off and on board. then the doors closed. but we didn't start. we were just standing there for about five minutes. and then all of a sudden the driver's voice came over the intercom and he addressed us with a heavy cologne accent:
"die bösen buben haben die tür kaputt gemacht. jetzt muss ich sie erst reparieren gehen... the bad boys [and this is only a very awkward translation of 'böse buben'] have broken the doors. now i have to fix them first."

after another five minutes he made a second announcement:
"die tür funktioniert wieder. die bösen müssen keine angst haben. nur der herr wird sie richten... the doors are working again. the bad boys don't have to be afraid. only the lord will judge them."

creepy.

no mail today.

boy - i *hate* when this happens. missed a call on my cell phone. and now a number in cologne that i don't know is blinking on the display and of course i don't have the nerve to call back and ask who it was. also, it's already eleven at night - not a good time to call people whom you potentially don't know.

not much to report. chatted with alice for three hours (which felt like half an hour only) last night. when i eventually went to bed at two in the morning i thought to myself: "hm, if i didn't know better i'd say that she's mildly flirting with me!"

got my latin mock test back. the teacher's comment was:
very good. but beware of formulations that are too fanciful!
i'm still going to flunk the real test. and afterwards i'll tell you: "well, i told you so!"

met jodie tonight and she gave me an update on her medical situation. then we shared a beer and something to eat and i ended up telling her about the "ice maiden" painting by dulac and what the two polar bears signify for me and how they have become a metaphor for being haunted by memories of ... oh well, *you* know. when i had finished she looked at me and said: "you *are* crazy!" and maybe i am. but, you know, here is what i escaped from because this is what happens when they get you. thank god i've managed to outwit them until now: http://www.uncorrelated.com/2006/08/sometimes_the_bear_gets_you_so.html

we had a pop quiz in latin class today. this is already the most exciting thing that has happened. corrected exam essays and term papers. worked a little bit on "stubborn life" at night. chatted with jamie. mailed with alice. need to sleep now.

it's half past eleven on rainy sunday night - not exactly the time when you call people up whom you do not know very well. still my cell phone was blinking bluely. it was jasmin who just wanted to say hello. this world. i tell you.

checked the snailmailbox in the morning, at noon and in the evening, even though i know that it won't even be shipped to my home address and that it won't arrive until at least at the end of next week. but still... 

went to the gym this morning and felt pretty exhausted afterwards. went to the café in the afternoon and translated caesar. it was pretty crowded and there was only one free table left. when i sat down i overheard how - at the table next to mine - someone was saying:
"...you should have seen your mother!"
unpacking my books i looked over : two men were sitting there, one between 50 and 60, a pipe and a golden lighter in front of him. he had an uncanny likeness to my exexex girlfriend's father. the other guy - who was apparently his son - was in his late twenties/early thirties and he looked like an utter milksop. now, i'm aware that i'm not exactly eradiating a rugged masculinity or manliness, but compared to this guy i was arnold schwarzenegger. on steroids. both men wore expensive clothes that didn't fit.

and while i was starting to translate the first sentence of chapter ten of bellum gallicum i overheard the following conversation:  
son: ...and then i will have finished the dissertation.
father: and are you planning to publish it as a book?
s: yes, of course.
f: and what do you think this will cost?
s: well, a fellow student has just published his with a publishing house that specializes in law and he paid 13.000 euro.
f: that must have been a thick book!
s: yes, 500 pages. mine will be not as expensive. i guess about five to six thousand euro.
f: drop me a line when you need it and i'll transfer it to your account. so what about your legal clerkship? do you like the firm i recommended you to?
s: with every day i hate mr. honeysuckle more. he's really unfair and far from being polite.
f: but torven, i told you that i can talk to him. it's a simple phone call for me. i have quite a different standing than you have, obviously.
s: yes, maybe that would be a good idea. and then i have to think about what i'll be doing afterwards. i want to work at a law firm that specializes in media-law. who do you know in this field?
f: hm, let me think... i don't know anyone directly, but a friend of mine has a partner who has a friend who has a joint practice for media law. i'll give him a call and see what i can do. what about your year abroad? have you talked to your sweetheart?
s: yes
f: i bet she wants to go to either london or new york.
s: right. she prefers new york, though.
f: she's a spoiled brat [he said this laughingly but not without a serious undertone]
s: do you know any law firms in new york?
f: hm, yes, yes. millberg is working there in a rather big one. i'll contact him and let you know if you can start there as soon as he's gotten back to me. he owes me one from the shapiro case.
s: great. do you want to drink anything else?
f: yes, a cappuccino...
s: waitress!
f: ...italian style.
s: a cappuccino!
f: italian style.
s: italian style!
f: so, you know that new york is expensive...
s: yeah, but i have saved some money.
f: you know, torven, you want to make sure that they're paying you enough! you want to have enough to finance the apartment, your porsche, the motorbike and you want to be able to offer your sweetheart something, you know, travels and stuff...

he actually said that last sentence word for word, i didn't make it up,  and i almost puked on the table. i know that generally the world of a scholar of literature is quite different from that of a scholar of law or economics, but then i remembered daniel and rob (drummer and guitarist of the nerve bible) and how they struggled to pay for being able to study law, and how they struggled to find internships, and how they worked day and night, and how they saved every dime to buy a set of new drumsticks or a guitar-effect and how they did not turn into assholes even though they were studying law, and how daniel even now - even though he's working as a lawyer in a renowned and famous firm - does not mind going on stage during a 200 lurkers concert and playing children's instruments.

and i thought how sad it is that some people seem to have lost total grounding and simply lack any kind of 'normal' relationship to money or what kind of financial means an average person has. and then they end up making an utter ass of themselves by saying something stupid like: "and if you cannot afford a plane ticket to a conference in the states every year you have to ask your parents to lend you the money!" of course i, too, want to be rich and have a car and a fancy apartment and being able to travel or at least to go on holidays once in a while or to fly over and visit princess superstar and paula and alice. but then i glanced over to that sad exhibition at the next table and decided : if this is the price than i rather die poor.

f: are you learning english or french?
at first i didn't realize that he was talking to me.
me: excuse me?
f: are you learning english or french?
me: eh, latin.
f: see, torven, he is learning latin. what you always refused to do. i'm always saying that wherever you go in the world or whatever you're doing, latin *always* comes in handy!

at this point i took my things and sat down at the bar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-GdCwZN5Rg

so i was sitting in my little cubicle this morning - i had come to the office even though it's a saturday. but a lot of blog.com co-workers come in on the week-end because the great thing about our job is that we can pretty much set the working hours ourselves as long as we keep updating the journals regularly. so i was sitting there on my office chair and was just about to get out the little bottle of sewing machine oil that i keep in the drawer at work because the little wheels of the chair kept squeaking horribly each time i made a movement.
"are you killing mice in there again?" 
thomas - suspenders and all - was standing in the entry.
"oh, no, it's just that the bloody chair..." and halfway through my answer i realize that i don't *really* have to tell him that the sound does not come from the smushing of mice.

"listen, phil. i just wanted to say that i'm really sorry that the other phil from the news-bloggers department got that assistant editor in chief post that i had haphazardly mentioned to you... hm, quite ironic actually."
'yeah, ironic my ass!' i was thinking. and what kind of a word is that anyway, 'haphazardly'?
"i checked your writing yesterday" he continued, ignoring my thoughts "and i like the way this new strand seems to develop, you know, with sticking to the names starting with 'j' and all..."
"well, i'm glad you liked it, mr. pynch..., eh, tom."
"yes, but, maybe you can flesh it out a little..."
"whatdoyoumean 'flesh' it out? spice it up? tits and ass?" and i meant that as a serious suggestion, even though my attempt at 'guy-talk' sounded admittedly pretty stupid.
"no, no - you got me all wrong. just a little more details. more narrative. so that people can identify..."

so i closed the new file that i had just created (and which i saved under the title "the connection between Spinoza's ideas on corporeality and the movie Flashdance") and started to 'flesh out' the jasmin episode:

when jasmin and i met, it was almost nine. the day had started with rain and then more rain and some more rain in the afternoon. but in the evening it suddenly started to clear up. when i stepped out of the house it was indeed warmer than i had expected so i walked off to our meeting place, a little square in the so called 'belgian quarter'. the square is surrounded by trees and bushes that separate it from the noisy city, and there's a kind of small park in the middle with flowerbeds that are bordered by little stone walls on which people are sitting in the summer, mostly students it seems, picnicking, talking and drinking.

i was there first, sat on the wall and started to read caesar while i was waiting for her. after a couple of minutes i looked up because i had reached the end of the chapter, and i saw her walking across the square towards me. she wore a shimmering, très chinois silken blouse and her shoulder-long black hair was hanging in strands in her face, in her hands she had two bottles of becks. she stopped in front of me, and when i was looking up, blinking into the setting sun and her face she stretched out one arm and said:
"guess it's still warm enough to have a beer right here!"

"sure!" i said and cleared the space next to me where she sat down. she showed me how to open the bottle with a lighter - which is something i can actually do, and pretending to be a little clumsy might not have ensured the projection of a very masculine image, but it *did* ensure that she had to put her hand onto mine:
"here, let me show you how to do it." her hand was warm and she worked my fingers like a tool.

so we were sitting there, talking and drinking while the sun eventually disappeared and a clear cut half moon came up over the square. a few feet away a group of people were playing boules on the sandy pathway, from one corner of the square a cloud of weed-smoke was blown over to us, in our back two guitarists got out their instruments and started to play softly while somewhere behind the bushes the bums were shouting at each other and one of them - a deranged woman - kept screaming "merde! merde!". in other words : it was as romantic as it can get.

after an hour or so she asked me:
"aren't you getting cold?"
"no..."
"see, i've got goose-flesh already!" and she proudly stretched her bare arm into my direction. i wasn't sure whether she expected me to touch it. i didn't.
"do you want to go someplace else?" i asked.
"yes, let's go over to the 'low budget'. it's just a ten minutes walk away."
"okay. didn't you bring a jacket?"
"no." she said.
"wanna put on mine?"
"sure."

so we went to the bar where we continued talking, and from time to time she leaned forward and when she was making a joke or stressing that she needed my full attention she put her hand on my knee or touched my bare arm from time to time. we both didn't have much for dinner, so the alcohol kicked in pretty fast.
"let's check out the bar next door!" she proposed and we went to the 'six pack'. standing by the bar, jasmin suddenly got hissed at by the bitchy waitress.
"can't you stand somewhere else?" she complained when she was balancing a tray through the crowd. jasmin's eyes started to sparkle madly and for a moment i thought 'cat fight! cat fight!'. but then her cell phone rang and she answered it, pressing it with one hand to her ear while she was covering the other ear with her free hand.
"sorry - a friend of mine!" she shouted at me, trying to outloud the music, and started to mumble something unintelligible into the receiver. doing this she leaned forward and rested her forehead on my shoulder while she was talking. which stunned me.

"that was my best friend." she said after she had hung up. "my ex-ex friend, in fact..." and she smiled apologetically.
"hm" i mumbled unimpressed.
"he just wanted to check if i was okay or if you had already killed and deep freezed me. you know, he studied english here at the university."
"really?"
"yes. he made his exam around about 2002"
"what was his thesis about?"
"it was about drugs. drugs in the novels of... hm, i can't remember. some guy... can't recall the name..."
"doesn't matter."
"no, it does. wait, i'll call him..."
and before i could assure her that it *really* wasn't that important she was on the phone again.
"what?" she shouted into the receiver. "can you repeat this? oh, okay. bye!"
she took a sip from her vodka red bull and said.
"pynchon's the name. drugs in the novels of thomas pynchon. and he said he knows you." and she smiled.

at about two in the morning we both realized that we needed to get some sleep badly. i didn't even have the time to make up my mind whether or not to kiss her good-bye because just when we stepped out of the club a free cab was stopping at the traffic lights, and she hailed it.
"i'm gonna call you..." she said "...you *do* check your mobile regularly, don't you?"
"yes." i said
"you know, sometimes in the late afternoon i'm sitting at the pond where i'm living [the mediapark - for those who know cologne] and enjoy the warm sun and have a beer. next time i'll call you and you join me! do you have the afternoons off sometimes?"
"sometimes..." i smiled.
and off she went.

so that was that.

so, i've just returned home and it's 02:23. jasmin took a cab back home and i walked. there were three or four moments when we looked each other in the eyes directly and the conversation came to an awkward pause and we were still looking at each other and then i realized that even though i didn't have any butterflies in my belly there *was* some kind of physical attraction. and when jasmin (who received this name because she does look a little bit like jasmin tabatabai-touch, a german actress) was laughing or explaining something to me, she touched my knee or my bare arm. and when she received a phone call from a friend she put her head on my shoulder while speaking. needess to mention that i didn't respond to any of these gestures with an equally mild corporeal affection because...well, because i'm an idiot.

at one point in the evening i realized that i wanted to talk to her in english.

when we said good-bye she was pretty loaded, i had a couple of beers as well but still felt okay. i walked her to a taxi and then walked home (30 minutes up the venloer strasse) because i missed the underground. it was still warm and there weren't a lot of people on the street. i was listenng to sade's "no ordinary love". tomorrow afternoon i will meet jodie for a coffee (trying to help her sort out her life. yeah! as if i had any experise in *that*!) and then later in the afternoon jane for an ice-cream.

alice said that i had to watch the movie office space and she sent me a couple of youtube links and i realized i'm *soooo* like milton! and somehow lumberg reminds me of thomas - if only for the suspenders. i don't know why, but recently he seems to have decided to enter the larry king lookalike contest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnUrPjXczYc&mode=related&search=
and you know, when i'm really frustrated i'm mumbling "i could set the building on fire" to myself as well. and my life feels as if *everyday* somebody came in to take away my stapler :-(