A Thousand Plateaus

“you are the first person who is buying one of these!” the friendly cashier said to me with an easteuropean accent when she was scanning the “children’s instrument-set” which i had spotted two weeks ago at the supermarket and eventually bought today.

also today i managed to connect my cell phone to a bluetooth pc and downloaded the photos i had made with it. here’s a little basket i got at the café from jodie the other night when i told her that i still was a little hungry:

and this is a submarine i did at the café with an orange, a straw, paper and whiteout-fluid. when i had finished it jodie refused to serve me any more alcohol.

sitting in the dark but warm night, a little after midnight, our protagonist - or dare i say our hero? - put his index finger to his lips, even though it was so dark in the park that the gesture remained invisble anyway. therefore he made a shushing sound, too.
“shhh!”
“what?”
“do you hear this?” there was a bird flying in circles over the bench they were sitting on, too fast to be visible against the starry, moonless sky, and it was shrieking every time it came full circle.
“it sounds like a hawk!”
“it sounds like some kind of mutant, winged monster squirrel!”
they both looked up. he pointed out the big dipper.
“i don’t really know any other constellation.”
and he added after a while:
“you know, i’m really glad that you answered eventually and gave me a chance to talk to you. i hate it when things are left unsaid.”
“yes, i do, too. you know, if it hadn’t been you i would not have answered or reacted at all. i don’t *know* what it is you’re doing to me” and again he was slapped on the shoulder lightly.
“well, i’m glad that we’ve sorted things out and you’re not mad at me anymore.”
“only a little.”
“ok, i can live with ‘a little’…” he laughed.
“look! a fox!” and really : at arm’s length a slender animal was walking by totally unconcerned. the fox even turned his head and looked at them and his eyes were blinking as if its head was filled with water.
“don’t move!”
the animal’s snout winced, it turned its head languidly and moved on slowly.
“see, it’s trotting on…”
“it’s doing a fox-trot!”
this mediocre pun was rewarded with a surprise kiss in the dark.
“my place or yours?”
“yours is much closer…” he said and pointed to the tower that rose against the stars behind the hill.
“…and tonight i will stay.”

argh, bad day. woke up with hang-over and massive headache from too many beers last night. this headache changed seamlessly into one caused by the oppressive heat and humidity. it started to rain in the afternoon but as usual the air didn’t really cool off enough. gym, supermarket, washing, work, dinner and the day was over.

yesterday night, b. (who is a waiter at the café) walked up to me and took the seat next to me. he had the day-shift and then stayed after work to chat and hang out. he had quite a lot of drinks and his movements started to become a little uncontrolled and awkward. he’s not very tall, and he’s the embodiment of any stereotype there is about sport-students. it’s almost funny to see how he is proclaiming and enacting his weirdly strained and compulsory heterosexuality : every comment about a female person contains some supposedly funny ambiguous statement and he’s living in a world spanned between “men’s heath” on the one hand and “gq” on the other.

anyway, so he sat next to me, put his short arm around my broad shoulder and his eyes were half closed when he saidlulledshouted:
“phil!”
“yep.”
“phil! you know what, actually you’re a guy that one should hate!”
“is that so?” i asked him and jodie, who was standing behind the counter and was sensing a good show, made herself comfortable in front of us. i motioned her to help me, but she just smiled amusedly.
“yes, you’re one of those guys one should hate. because… because you are good-looking - i find you good-looking, i might say this, yes? and my ex-girlfriend thought so too, so, well, anyway, yes, and you’re an inlectectual… you’re an inlect… you’re intelligent…”
“not, really!” i protested
“you *are* intelligent!” he insisted “you’re writing a book!” ’so does one third of the earth’s population’ i wanted to argue but realized that it wouldn’t be much use.
“plus!” b. continued “plus you’re talented and musically gifted!”
“thank you. i don’t agree on all points, but thanks nonetheless..”
“you know, if i was a woman i wanted to be with you.”
at this point jodie’s drink came out of her nose.
“i mean, if i was a woman. and i’m certain that if jodie was a woman, no, if you were a woman she would want to be with you, too”
“most certainly!” jodie shouted.
b. raised his glass:
“a toast! to gorgeous victoria’s perfect ass!”

from yesterday night:
friday evening. sitting at the café, it’s pretty crowded, people in pairs, like animals waiting to board the ark, it’s warm and sunny and lonely. there’s paper strewn around me with chunks of lyrics but it’s no day to write, really. funny, how there are writing and nonwriting days. jodie is sweating and gorgeous victoria is fanning her face with a coaster, the urgent word-file is still blank, i can’t think of anything else but that i want to be with you, that i want to be where you are now, that… but it’s no use, really.

later
i managed to alienate yet another person. hooray! uh, i’m drunk. so, remember when i reported about the quarrel concerning staying overnight? as you might remember, dear reader, i did not stay but rode home to sleep in my own bed. two days later i wrote a mail, explaining why i didn’t stay. it went kind of like that:

hey,

i didn’t feel very well last time, which you may have noticed. on the one hand because i felt a flu coming on, on the other because, when the fireworks started [there was a huge firework that night] i suddenly had to think of a person to whom my heart is still attached. and each of the explosions and every colorful flower that the light painted into the sky  forced memories into my head that made me sad.

you wanted to hear a good reason why i did not want to stay with you that night. but there is no good reason. at least no reason that would be understandable objectively. i felt like it would have been the wrong thing to do. it would not have been honest. in fact, i did not stay *because* i like you  : i didn’t want to lie next to you and think of somebody else all the time. i know you think that i’m a stupid ass and i’m sorry if my behavior is hurting you. this is not what i intended.

after that, i didn’t hear a word. no answer. no reaction. i wrote a couple of text messages since then: no answer. sigh. it’s all soooooo tiresome. what am i doing to people? i was simply being honest. was this wrong? should i have stayed and pretended that i felt differently? i wrote another text message tonight: nothing.

this afternoon, starting to work-out on the machine, this song started to play. and when the guitar and the finger flips surrounded me, i had to chuckle, loudly; in fact, i had to laugh out loud. don’t ask me why. it simply forced more than a smile on my lips. even though i didn’t feel like smiling or laughing, even though i was tired and my eyes ached from proofreading articles of professors which – if they were term-papers by students – we would hand them back because they are full of formal inconsistencies and lacking sources. anyway, i had to laugh, because of the rush of joy. of course the next second i was thinking how on earth i could manage to write a song that is so joyful.

and then also THANKS a lot to the fucking moon. i lay awake for four hours the other night, its blueish light so bright on the floor that i could have read a book in the middle of the room. the beams were so full of uncanny and restless energy that they made the curtains bulge as if the wind was caught in them.

what is it about this song? it’s not even *that* special. and the melody is not *that* jubilant at all. and, frankly, the electric guitar is not outstanding, either. nor are the lyrics.

i don’t know.

princess superstar’s back in town.

when i walked home from a farewell party for a colleague tonight i crossed the open field behind the university, and there were stacks of violet, bulky clouds announcing a nearing thunder storm, but behind them, at the horizon, the sun was sinking, and the soft light was setting the bottom of the clouds on fire, and it was so massively beautiful that i forgot to breathe for a moment and then i felt the loneliness fill out every square inch between me and the people passing, and all across the wide, empty field the two polar bears came galloping, and i turned the walk-man louder and hoped they’d pass me and run straight on, but they didn’t.

for reasons i can’t really go into here and now i was listening to james yorkston’s “woozy with cider” tonight and each time i listen to this particular song i remember the week-end i spent with s. in brussels, and i opened the folder with the photos i took back then and looked at them for the first time. actually for the first time since the break up in 2005 i looked at pictures of s., and it didn’t hurt, even though it felt strange and i was sad and i wished myself back to the moment the photo had been taken so i could change history and undo the alienation and the unloving.  

johnny jewel commented : but how about creating an infrastructure? what do you think that would take? how would you go about doing that? are there things you feel are keeping you from it and if so, what are they, and how could they be changed?
i am asking these questions because the “loop” of how to process inspiration adequately is very familiar to me.
i suspect academia and literary studies, at least a certain mentality that prevails in some places within that field, is unhelpful: it inflates the “inner censor” and teaches you to think in impossibly big terms you can’t “live out” yourself.

hm, these are very interesting questions which i think i would like to answer here.

not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not. good. not good. not. good. not good. not good. not. good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not good. not. good. not good. not good. not. good. not good not good.

“are you never truly happy?” c. is asking our protagonist [back then that night @ the café]. he takes too long to answer.
“is that a ‘no’, or are you still thinking?”
“you know…” he eventually answers “the sort of tragic thing is that the things that make me happy simultaneously make me sad. there are two things that make me happy, that give me joy : encounters with people whom i love and good music, good literature, good images = good expressions. in the first case there’s always the fear of losing that loved person inscribed in the encounter. in the second case it’s the too-muchness which i cannot cope with. good expression is by definition one that ‘inspires’ [unfitting term] me and makes me restless. but as long as i have not created an ‘infrastructure’ so i can use this ‘inspiration’ and restlessness and make it work for me, it turns bitter and stale. therefore, right now, i don’t think that there are moment of ‘pure’ enjoyment.”
“you think too much.”
“i don’t know. honestly i don’t think i do. i might feel too much, though. there’s a constant sense of overflowing and i don’t know where to… hm… the closest thing to ‘using’ this restlessness is the gym. but it’s dead energy that i create there, i only feed the machine, nothing more. but it’s the only form of acceptable transition, because i’m not ‘wasting my time’. in the gym i do something for my health (like a good citizen subjecting himself to biopower) and hence i’m doing something that’s socially allowed and valuable. plus unreflectedly buying into cultural stereotypes of youth and well-formed bodies always secures acceptance from mostly everybody.”

this week-end, jamie and sharon spent a couple of days in berlin. they took some 200 lurkers stickers with them. here are some of the results:

when i’m walking through the exit of the university long after they have switched off the escalators and i’m feeling the warm evening breeze that is blowing across the square playing with the fabric of my shirt and pants, a memory that is more vivid than the actual event is shocking my bones like an electric current. so badly that i cannot take one more step forward, but have to hold on to the concrete wall for support and then have to sit down on the ledge were, during the day, the smokers sit in groups.
i see you in front of me with your v-neck shirt.
“this is my favorite one!” you said proudly, and i in turn was proud that i was favorite-shirt-worthy. it was orange, and it didn’t really fit you, you looked kind of awkward in it, but i loved you for that awkwardness that so contrasted with the grace you radiated otherwise. it takes several minutes until i get up, walk to the bike and ride home.

on the way, i’m stopping at the café to have a coke and check how jodie’s doing. it’s empty and she is reading the paper behind the counter when i’m walking in, shouting at me:
“what do *you* want here?!?”
“i love you, too!”
“are you coming straight from the office?”
“STRRRAIGHT from the office!” but my pathetic kramer-impersonation is lost on her.
later, while i’m peeling the label from the empty coke bottle and she is washing glasses, i’m saying
“jodie?”
“hm?”
“you’re studying medicine, you must know…”
“…must know what?”
“i am weirdly tired the past weeks, i could sleep 12 hours a day and 14 hours a night. i can’t concentrate and right now i could put my head on the counter and fall asleep. i think i fell asleep shortly in the office this afternoon. even though i slept tonight for 9 hours. if these are the symptoms, what is the disease?”
the answer is coming even before i’ve finished the question.
“sounds like a depression to me.”
i’m laughing about her joke but she’s not laughing back.
“no, i mean seriously…” i’m insisting.
“seriously.”
“get out! i’m not having any depressions! and besides i want to have something organic. something that you can take a pill for and you’re feeling better the next day.”
the bell in the kitchen is ringing and jodie’s switching from talking- to working-mode, rushing off. suddenly i’m feeling two hand on my shoulders in an unsuccessful attempt to embrace me.
“hi!”
“hi, c.!”
“saw you sitting here and thought i’d drop in!”
jodie’s walking past us with two dishes in her hand in a hurry. but she’s got enough time to stop shortly and shout:
“oh bloody hell! you, *too*?!!?”
“she’s in a good mood tonight!” i’m informing c.
“seems so.”
later i’m asking c. what her diagnose of my sleep-the-clock-around-state would be.
“sounds like a depression to me.”
i’m giving up and change the subject.

tonight gorgeous victoria is working, standing by the sink, washing glasses, putting them orderly in growing rows between me and her, and her hands and fingers become increasingly fragmented with each new row of glasses i have to look through. her golden wedding ring is blinking.

johnny commented: (asking in curiosity, not in judgment…) are you hurting her?

i’m afraid our protagonist is. even though he tried everything to avoid this and to not create a situation in which he would. this, also, is a reason why he didn’t stay that night. because it would have sent the wrong signals. and he had made it clear from the start that he had no intention and no capacity to get involved emotionally. he had made this clear repeatedly. but this, of course, was theory.

in the distance the many colored explosions create abstract patterns in the sky behind the cathedral.
“these are the most beautiful…”
our protagonist is nodding silently.
“…they look like giant palm tress.”
the boom from the explosion arrives long after the sparks have burned out spectacularly. three, four, five explosions follow, painting red, blue and green bouquets over the river, intense pulsing lights, that are reflected in the wine glass he’s raising to his lips. looking straight down from this unusual height is giving him vertigo, and he clutches the balcony’s banister for some real support.
“you know, we could go there and have a closer look.”
“hm…, no. i don’t really feel like being among a large group of people tonight.”
the answer is a kiss and a whisper “i’d rather not share you with anybody else tonight, too.”

hours later they quarrel mildly.
“but you said yes.”
“oh no, i did not say yes.” he had foreseen and feared this argument the entire evening, knowing that there was no way to avoid it.
“you said you would stay the entire night and sleep over.”
“i don’t think that i said that.”
“but you didn’t say no either, when i suggested it. not saying no means yes!”
“not saying no simply means to postpone the conflict as long as possible.”
a sulking face and the fingers that have massaged his back retreat to the body that owns them.
“just give me *one* reason why you’re not staying!”
“i’m sorry, but i just can’t.” sometimes there just isn’t a rational reason that would be communicable or understandable by another person.
“i knew it! you *do* have wife and kids at home!”
“no, stupid! that’s not it!” but he couldn’t say that all night long – starting with the shower of light in the sky – he had been thinking of other bodies he had rather caressed and slept with, of other voices and other smiles.
“if you’re going now i’ll never call you again!” the threat is enforced by a slight slap on his shoulder. whether meant seriously or not, it didn’t stop him from tying his shoelace.

more here…