A Thousand Plateaus

From: info@threadless.com
Subject: Update to your Threadless Order #1568XXX.

well, at least now i know where they are…

tried to write a mail to n. all week-end long. haven’t managed to do so. started the first sentence. hit delete. started another first sentence. hit delete again. fuck.

oh great great i’ve fucked it up big time again! how many times did i have to post this sentence in the past year ?????

returned home at three in the morning, fell into bed tired and exhausted, cell phone next to the pillow, feeling the need to apologize or explain, but i couldn’t think of any words that hadn’t been said earlier or simply of any words that would do the job of explaining. i don’t know how to explain anymore. i don’t know what to say anymore.

fell into a deep and uneasy sleep with bad dreams shaped by the overwhelming sense of fear to hurt another person. not a good starting point. plus the realization that i don’t bloody know what i want. right now it feels like i will stay reluctant to ever seriously bond to a person on an emotional level again. why is that? why this shift? it didn’t use to be that way. is it some fear of losing that lies at the core of this restlessness? is it a newly developed fear of committing to a monogamous relationship? or is it because it’s not the right person? or is it because n. signaled “i want you”? am i stuck in some perverse situation which the narrator in “annie hall” described with the marx brothers’s joke “i don’t want to join any club that accepts a person like me as a member”?? have i stumbled into a 70s woody allen movie? 

n.’s eyes mixed with anger and hurt and irritation when i whispered “i better get home now” after we kissed. understandably. but what is it that i want? why can’t i settle for a sensible, a reasonable love? all signs say: “go boy! or do you honestly think you’ll get such a chance again, find anything better?! look at you! if you refuse this, you’re even stupider than we all thought!”

and maybe a reasonable love that is less stormy and less forceful and less intense is also less destructive in the end and would simply be better for me? a settled love. a tamed love. a passionless love?

and this is the weird thing : i’m talking about passion even though i’ve met this person six times only. who knows how much passion i might be able to develop! but then, what a difficult condition for cultivating feelings is this : to wait for passion to emerge. doesn’t passion has to be there from the start, as a fertilizer?

when i’m putting on my paul simon coat n. is leaning in the doorway, dressed all in black, hands folded behind the back, suddenly looking much younger than 25, slim and fragile, face in the shadow. and i feel as if i had drags for hands and a suicide bomb belt on my waist. how do you operate like this without causing hurt?

your heart’s a mess
you won’t admit to it.
it makes no sense
but i’m desperate to connect…

n. must think i’m a total wacko - and rightfully so. we cooked tonight, an asian dish, then watched a movie and afterwards lay on n.’s bed for three hours, talking, until it was five in the morning and i drove back home. all the time i was sitting on my side of the bed, arms crossed, personifying rejection. what the hell am i thinking i am doing? but it was strange the way i felt petrified and paralyzed, thinking which consequences every little touch might have and what it means to do this and to do that. i’m a freak! everybody else would have taken the initiative, taken the chance, our arms touching, n. looking over to me smiling and encouraging. is it doubts or is it conscience?

okay, this *REALLY* sucks : ever since youtube has introduced the new video format my browser keeps crashing each time i want to play a video. and not only bloody ms ie, also firefox. even thought i downloaded the brand new flash-player plug-in. fuckers!

i’m in *l*o*v*e*:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGzcKHImik

and then you think: “what a beautiful simple video” and then the list of credits is longer than the list of people you plan to invite to your funeral:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo-yV19ZomE&feature=related

:o( getting sick again. kept coughing all day long, infecting everyone else in the office.

laura veirs’ “wrecking” is too much of a movie soundtrack to not fall back into cinematic memories while i’m passing the café at 1:30 in the morning. no snow, but cloudless pure black sky and ice on the cars. thinking back to that night when s. (the other s.) slipped me the sheet of paper with the phone number. it seems like ages ago. i’ve become much more cynical and bitter since then.

spent the evening at n.’s place, drinking martinis and eating chocolate, listening to aimee mann. we were sitting next to each other on the sofa, and i think i wouldn’t have minded if n. had leaned forward and kissed. or had i? it’s all so confusing. i think i might have been expected to do so. i have to get it straight what it is that i want. i have to make up my mind what is best for me. and everybody else involved. sometimes i feel like throwing a shirt and pants into a suitcase and fly to some country on the other side of the earth, starting a new life where nobody knows me, starting anew, starting something simple, without the confusion and complications in this broken place, this broken place.

i’ve pulled the large hood over my head, it frames my field of vision with a fake fur circle. i look like paul simon and can’t really see anything except straigh ahead. to look left and right i have to turn my entire upper body. crossing the street i don’t really mind and just hurry on without checking for cars.

got the french window wide open, and the soft smell of snow comes streaming into the room : everything’s white outside, and the light is milky. earlier this week, alice predicted that it would snow, but i told her no way.

On a raft made for one…

“you mean you’re speaking dutch?” i’m asking n. while we’re talking over a hot chocolate.
“yes.”
“i love dutch. i find it soooo sexy!”
“really?”
“yes, ever since…” and i bite my tongue sharply.
“ever since what?”
“oh look, a rainbow…!” and thank god that diverts attention. from the corner of my eyes i’m seeing two white shadows cross the street, and then they’re gone. not gone. but waiting. and i have to think back to the night that paved the way for the polar bears to return, the night i hung a bloody piece of meat at the hook outside my door that they could smell 200 miles against the wind : the night i watched the dvd with b..

meeting b. for the first time a couple of weeks back was different from what i had expected : i thought i would talk to a very cool and smooth person, but that was not the case : b. was a little nervous, fingers ceaselessly moving in a constant state of self-awareness (“i can’t order spaghetti because i always make a mess all over the table when i eat pasta…”), and i didn’t have to do a lot of talking. which i liked a lot. i like it when people whom i don’t know are talking a lot and there are no awkward pauses or gaps in the conversation. and b. looked older, which was sort of a relief : i would have guessed about 28. not 21.

i knew that it would be a ludicrous idea to meet again so my plan was to say: “look, it was nice talking to you, but i don’t think that we’ll meet again…” but before i could do that we were suddenly having a discussion about movies and we found out that we both like the alien-series…
“we have to do an alien night, then…” b. said, eyes glowing, “…and watch all films in a row.”
“yeah…” i replied automatically.
“you’re into it?” it was only then that i slowly realized that i had just carelessly approved a second date.
“oh, well, ehm, yes, maybe. i mean, why not…”
“great!” big smile.

a week later i had rented the alien dvds. after we had cooked in my little mini-kitchen we sat down side by side on my sofa, watching the movie.
by the middle of the film b.’s head was resting on my shoulder.
“ooookay…” i thought “…this is probably a mistake.”
2/3 into the movie fingers were wandering up and down my bare arm.
when the end-credits rolled b. was holding my hand.
it was weird, because these gestures of intimacy came so very easily. i mean, it simply happened. as if it had always been that way. and there was nothing within me that resisted against that.
except for my brain.

by two in the morning we lay on the bed/sofa under the same cover, both sleepy, both falling asleep while ripley was fighting aliens in part three and the candles in my room went out one by one. b. pulled closer to me and embraced me with closed eyes as if we had known each other for months. as if we were lovers, bodies very warm and tired. this was how we spent the night : lying very close to each other, each time one of us woke up we renewed the embrace.

in the morning i had a kind of déjà vu, because the first time s. had slept over at my place it had been the beginning of october, too. and as back then the sun was shining onto the bed this morning, waking me up, and i saw that sleeping, 21 year old body next to me. when b. was awake too, fingers went through my hair, touched my cheek and neck. after half an hour b.’s body was rubbing against mine quite intentionally. it was when we kissed for the first time (which wasn’t a revelation) that i looked over to the clock and said that i had an appointment at noon. which was true. but it was also a convenient excuse to weasel out of the situation.

“we still need to watch aliens 3 and 4!” i was reminded during the next couple of days. and even though something in my head was trying with pounding fists and screaming voice to warn me i fixed another date, and when we met and watched the remaining two films, weirdness repeated : after ten minutes first b.’s head and then body rested against mine, halfway into the movie the head was lying on my lap and i was stroking b.’s hair which catapulted me into two opposing states simultaneously : on the one hand i was seeing myself sitting there, asking myself the well-known question what the fuck i was doing! but at the same time i was just extremely enjoying being so close to … this person? to somebody? to this body? and feeling how i could let go of so many thoughts and worries by concentrating on tenderly driving my fingers over fine eyebrows.

how these two states could co-exist, i don’t know.

eventually we switched off the lights and curled up against each other. well, it started with cuddling and arbitrary kisses on neck and shoulder… and afterwards we fell asleep in each other’s arms and i felt … happy. happy? i don’t know. happy is a simple word. happy sounds like a simple emotion. i think i didn’t have a simple emotion in years. whenever i’m feeling something it always seems to be complex and chaotic and oxymoronic. and i guess even though i felt ‘happy’ i realized that i just had made a big step towards increasing my fear of losing. again.

dear reader, please don’t judge me. but consider that i am a deeply disturbed individual with an overruling complex of inferiority, fear of loss and an insatiable hunger for acceptance.

it was weird to be granted this kind of intimacy by someone who doesn’t know me. i mean b. didn’t know what i’m doing, what i like or dislike in terms of music or literature, doesn’t know anything about my job or what i’m doing in my spare time, nor a thing about my dreams or my fears.

but then i thought : maybe *that* is why this whole scenario is so kind of … fascinating. because i have simply no clue *why* that person who does not know me is sharing this closeness. it’s not for my wit. nor for my limited but hopefully above average intellect. it’s not for my eloquence or the way i get sparkling skin when i’m listening to music. it’s not for the songs i’ve written or *anything* else i have written. it’s a mystery, really. it’s not for my money and it’s not because i’m famous. it’s almost like this was some kind of unconditional acceptance. one which i gained without doing anything for it. but also one which can be as easily lost.

i want moments with people to be like songs that you can put on repeat and then you can listen to them over and over again. you will never lose them. they will be there in the morning when you wake up : the same words, the same tunes. you can play them again all day long, and they won’t cease giving you beauty and warmth and brittle bones and sparkling skin and the feeling of being home.

they might lose this power one day, but then you will simply move on, out of your own will, and nobody will take the music away from you and leave you feeling naked and vulnerable in an empty room, bent like a question mark because you need to cry so violently.

songs are the better lovers.

to cut a long story short : there was *some*thing about the togetherness with b. which reinstalled the feeling of intimacy, tenderness and, hm, solace? immediately. by the touch of a finger.

and then.
lost again.
and paws scraping in front of my door.

and now, only a couple of days later : hot chocolate with n., 25, ballet dancer, art student and “maybe we can meet next week again?”
“that would be great!”

Red painted radio towers sing you songs
Not, not that something’s wrong
You’ve got ‘em in your head
But doesn’t it get lonely
Riding up there to the sun
On a single raft for one
Don’t you wish for someone
To pull you on a string
Down from atmospheres
Down into a clearing
To kiss and box your ears?

we were sitting in a café near the university, each of us blowing into the bowl of hot chocolate in front of us while on the dark streets people were hurrying home. the rain was more like a spray of water than actual drops. every ten minutes a tram stopped and spat commuters out into the wind. we talked for what must have been two hours, but they passed quickly. when it was time to go home and the rain had stopped we payed and crossed the street and tram-tracks slowly. i needed to go up, n. needed to go down the street. there were five or six awkward minutes when we were standing on the sidewalk, and the people that got off the tram were pushing past us, and n. made a step towards me and i didn’t know whether to hug or shake hands or, i don’t know, kiss? from the first meeting on i had been very reserved physically, as is my custom. so eventually we just said
“goodbye!”
“see you!”
“yeah, that would be great. maybe next week?”
“sure, let’s stay in touch.”
“you bet!” i said and walked off after n. had turned around and drowned in the group of people heading down the avenue. when i passed the tramstation i saw s. standing there: hands in the pockets of her long winter coat, looking sternly to the other side of the street, the light blue eyes clear as icicles.