[june 01, 2002]
okay, i'm off to the wedding. no time for a proper entry. so why don't
you just entertain yourself and fill out the questionnaire
if you haven't done so yet?
[june 02, 2002]
i'm at tara's parent's place. it's half past nine in the morning. i've
had three hours of sleep. the house was still quiet when i woke up, unable
to get back to sleep again. now i'm sitting in the garden, the sun is burning
down on my arms forcefully and there must be a billion (bumble)bees buzzing
about me and around me. it sounds like a symphony. or rather: the moment
before the symphony starts, the moment the strings are tuning and there
is this strange noise pattern that eventually leads to one indistinct chord.
there was so much i wanted to write when i woke up but now my mind seems
just to be blank. the party yesterday was great! the gig went well. especially
the part where tara & cedric joined in to cover 'galileo'. it had been
hard work to convince tara to sing but yesterday night during the performance
she held the microphone just like a pro and there were two moments when
she looked at me while the chorus started and she seemed to be full of
energy, breathing in deeply and singing with all her heart. and that was
really great to see. cedric sang as well and played a great harp solo in
the bridge. i ate for two and drank for oneandahalf. the food was exquisite
and the dj was surprisingly well: lots of 80s hits. some people were dancing.
i was dancing as well. one time. when luka was played. sad fact: i can't
dance anymore. i was trying to move my limbs rhythmically which did not
work! shock! especially not when i tried to dance with tara and i had to
manage the task of coordinating my movements with the music AND her movements.
Embarrassing!. Melanie (mark's (tara's brother) wife) is a florist and
she had decorated the tables with bouquets of roses in various colors and
in between there were rose petals strewn all over the tablecloth, which
looked really classy. the venue was an old cottage, a single building lying
within miles of empty fields. all in all there must have been about 60
guests. so sounds like we simply had a great time, right? and now you're
wondering "wait, something's wrong! when will he start complaining?"
NOW: we were sitting with nils ( a friend of marc) and his girlfriend
nicole in front of the cottage. there was a little boy, about 5 years old,
who made a game out of bringing out the drinks. and he carried a tray and
on it, right in the middle, stood a glass of beer. and while he was stepping
over the ledge of the door he stumbled and with a loud crash the glass
fell down and scattered into a thousand pieces on the floor. he stood there,
motionless, not comprehending for a second what had happened, the beer
flowing down among the broken glass in little rivers at his feet and then
he looked up and the expression on his face was so desperate and helpless
that i thought he would start to cry every second but he just stood there,
silent, motionless, except for his big, dark eyes filled with worries and
sadness and questions and the urge for understanding. and i knew that it
was me there standing among the pieces of all that i had thrown to the
ground and i knew what went on in his head right now i know what he feels
right now i know his disappointment and aching for the possibility to turn
back time just a second to undo his failing, to walk over the ledge more
carefully, more consciously, more gracefully.
i saw them everywhere again. in couples dancing. in couples kissing.
in couples hugging. in couples whispering. some moments it was their wedding.
i did not want to hear of eternal love. i did not want to hear of being
true. i did not want to think that you might think that in HIM you have
finally found your true love. it hurt to think that there's such a thing
as love at all. over the bar there was a neon advert: TIVOLI BIER. for
some reason i wrote these two words on a napkin: TIVOLI BIER. and then
i crossed out four letters. the dj was playing talk talk: 'such a shame'.
TIVOLI
BIER.
i rearranged one. scary signifiers. it was not a game. OLIVER. such a shame.
and absent mindedly i gathered the rose petals from the cloth carefully
and piled them in my open palm and they were as light as air and as soft
as water and i leafed my fingers through them. and then [and this was already
early in the morning] 'jump' by van halen was played and in an act of comic
defiance against bad hard rock song [and probably also in a moment of overwhelming
melancholy for a youth that had ended ten years ago] tara & cedric
were storming onto the dance floor where nils and nicole were already 'jumping'.
and i remembered your love for 
roses
and while i stare at the fragile petals in my palm i think of the magritte
painting i gave you, it was huge: a red rose that filled a room. where
is it hanging now? did you put it down? what is it you're seeing in it
now? it seems to me that i was too big in your life, as big as the rose
in the painting, so big that it sucks all air and all the space to leave
you suffocating and struggling to break out. no room beside it but allfilling
and evergrowing. and while nils and nicole and cedric and tara and a lot
of other people i don't know are jumping up and down as ironically as possible
i take the petals and let them shower onto the napkin in a slow motion
snowstorm, covering each letter of his name and still it won't stop hurting,
it won't stop hurting it won't stop.
the party ended at 5 in the morning. when we stepped out to wait for
the cab i was standing next to cedric on a quiet morning. it was light
already. in our back the cottage and the soft music of u2's 'with or without
you'. we didn't say a word. cedric was smoking a cigarette and i could
hear the crackling of the burning tobacco through the crisp, clear morning
air. we were facing a huge field that ran all the way to the horizon, the
fresh green of the grass glistening, cows in the distance. in our back
a delicate sunrise setting some single high clouds on fire, burning in
a sky whose color was ranging from dark blue to bright red. and in one
corner of the sky there was the moon: golden. distinct. cut in half. governing.
it was so beautiful. i couldn't move. except for the thoughts of you that
came storming through me. the birds were singing. bono was singing. and
then the coda of 'with or without you' started, muffled from within the
cottage, the instrumental part when the bass starts with the riff and then
the guitar sets in and i started to cry and you give yourself away and
you give yourself away and you give yourself away and i couldn't think
of you not being here. i was missing you so much.
now tara's parents are awake too and the house is filled with life slowly.
the sun throws a pattern of fine laced shadows onto the paper and the smell
from the flowers comes being blown across the garden. the sound of tara's
father walking on the gravel while he is watering the plants. my head dizzy
and stupid with the buzzing, the soft light, the sweet smell. you're missing.
but not me. i'm longing so much for you that i wish i had something to
cut me.
when we went to fetch the car this morning tara put a tape into the
car stereo. a random tape. the music started: 'such a shame'.
[later]
i'm back home. it's eleven at night and tomorrow i'll have to go to cologne
again. got a mail from angelina and she writes: 'What you write about her
now makes me wonder why you let her go. Why did you not fight for her?'
and when i read that i literaly jumped back from the monitor and shouted
out aloud : "ha!" because i do this is it all these words i tried so hard
and i'm still trying i'm fighting things i cannot see i'm missing you so
much i want it to stop why can't you make it stop i'm missing you so much
i'm missing you so much tonight and every minute and now now now i can't
understand it i want it to stop please i don't know what to say i don't
know what to do pHlEeLaPse.
[june 3, 2002]
i'm in cologne. it's 18:30. i'll eat something now and then blaine, his
friend cedric, eva and her sister will meet in one of the famous cologne
bars they kept telling me about, trying to use them as a reason to convince
me to move to cologne. there was a big thunderstorm just a couple of minutes
ago and i had to think about eve because she told me that she loves thunderstorms.
so i opened the window and sighed into the sky to send the clouds to her.
[june 4, 2002]
i'm on the train. it's 7:30 pm. i fell asleep during the colloquium today.
great weather. sunny and warm. sunny! we went to a cocktail bar yesterday
night and i was back at eva's place at 2 in the morning, then got up at
7 again. paula again in my ears. light as soft and golden as a rembrand
painting. i'm drifting off to sleep every now & then. kraftlos. i've
corrected all tests. which is good. nobody failed. everybody passed. except
for me. inevitable. strings. voice. dear philipp. i feel like crying
or dying. keep it shorter: how can you figure out why things happen
if you only believe in an arbitrary world? p. asks. how can you figure
out what things mean if you only believe in an arbitrary language? i ask.
i
want dark & beautiful lines of writing on my body. i don't want
to be me. not tonight. not now. i want to be somebody else. with different
look. different smell. different luck. small blue thing. i'm not here.
this isn't happening. blaine thinks i want to punish myself. but that's
not true. of course it's all about attention. of course. of course. this
& that. you kill yourself for recognition angelina had quoted
in her first mail. yep. i'm aching for your delicate neck & shoulders.
where am i driving to? i don't belong here. i don't belong here.
another hour to go. the glass of your watch on my wrist mirrors my face.
seconds without you. piling up to months. a whole life. seconds without
you. beats. of music. of organs. of a hand that moves without rest round
& round like my mind circles around you. or the memory of you. i don't
know. why should i? i'm just i. not more. i drank so much yesterday night
that i felt the tip of my tongue going numb. i did not taste the alcohol,
the cocktails were too sweet & i drank them like water, hoping that
a tongue of lead might stop the rambling. fat chance! i wanna be part
of the human race race race race. where do we go from here? where are you
now when i need you? THEN: acoustic guitar and anticipated strings:
a prophetic change of lyrics twoandahalf years ago: she lived with a broken
man, a cracked polystyrene man who just crumbles and burns. he used to
write melodies for songs in the 90s. but entropy always wins. clear sky.
low, spot-light sun. You're the girl in the paperweight | I barely know
you | you're so quiet is there nothing | in this weird perspective | that'll
let me breathe in the smell of Eden | in your eternally open eyes | I barely
see you
| I barely see you | And everything's beautiful | but babe not you or me
| Yeah everything's beautiful | but babe not you or me... my room is
filled to the ceiling, things tumble out of the window already and onto
the street, i can't open the door, it's blocked by all this stuff. found
the only photo i still have of you sunday night. bad, bad reaction. and
then your handwriting and a promise and a heart and your movement in the
writing and your smile within the letters and a presence recorded a promise
recorded a feeling recorded and if it weren't
for you my heart would have had no home i'd give anything to be where you
are i'd give anything to be where you are i'd give anything to be where
you are i'd give anything to be where you are right now
[june 5, 2002]
just thought i'd add some beauty to the june page. the plan for tonight:
write a couple of emails, listen to those new mark eitzel songs that i've
downloaded.
can you see can you see can you see what the world is? it's raining.
thank god. it has been hot & humid all day long. it's night now. if
the truth don't make you happy what will you do? the truth is that i'm
happy when i'm with you. when we
were at the wedding there was a 'newspaper' with stories and photos of
marc and melanie. and whenever i looked at it i saw him&her on the
cover. and in the stories. and in the photos. especially in one: it was
a picture of melanie from the 80s [see right], and cedric pointed at it
and said: 'isn't that just unique!' but it wasn't! it wasn't! because it
looked so much like the photo of her that i suddenly kept remembering.
that photo that was taken when she was in the south of france [i think]
in the 80s. and on it she looks so fragile: she's too thin, her brown skin
hardly cover her bones. her brown hair is very light from a summer full
of sun and she's wearing typical 80s clothes which cannot distract from
the impression of 'a hollow egg shell kind of frailty' her body radiates.
vulnerable. and yet aggressive. in my memory she's frowning into the camera
like an animal caught in a corner. should that photo have been a warning
to me? but it made me want to care for her even more, to protect her. HA!
as if I could protect ANYbody! as if I could protect HER! as if I could
have given her ANYthing or stilled her lust for life! what a laugh! or
maybe i did. and when i couldn't anymore she took oliver. i'm mean. wish
i was mean enough. all these photos that i left with her. of us. of her.
i wanted to protect her but i only hurt her, made her life difficult, became
a problem. i should at least let her go in grace. i've lost all grace.
i might have lost all dignity. i might have lost my mind. i've certainly
lost you. i could go on without my grace, my dignity or mind. but i just
don't know how to go on without you.
[before]
there are moments - those that sting and cut and hurt - when i realize
that i've been only one in a long line of men. not exceptional enough to
stay on top of her list, i thought i would, but that was one big illusion!
caught like the specks of dust in the rays of the late afternoon sun. i
hate my heart: too weak to hold you and too strong to just give up.
[june 6, 2002]
GNARG! in a moment of motorial disorientation i knocked over that dark
red glass that i put the candle in and it scattered into thousand pieces.
it's gray outside, street & pavement dark and wet. had bad dreams.
i dreamed that we were marrying. i was so happy that i woke up.
[later]
last night, just before i fell asleep i thought that i have to change the
tone. i can't go on with the same old complaints day after day, always
the same repetition compulsion, a rechewing words that have lost their
flavor long ago. but then this morning, when i was sweeping the floor,
i felt the strong wish to get on the train and drive to gütersloh
and look for her. drive to her office and stand at the door and wait until
she would come out, with him probably but still it would be her, wouldn't
it and i could see her again and maybe listen to her voice and catch her
look, maybe she would recognize me. i want to talk to her, know how she
is what she's doing, how her job is going, if she's happy. and if she's
happy i'd be too. and then i could just turn around and board any train
and just sit there and drive away from all this and i wish i knew a way
to get away.
[later]
went walking. fear in my back. great songs to listen to on repeat: mark
eitzel, 'everything is beautiful'. my mood on a scale from 1 [:o(]
to 10 [:o)]: 2.3. fucking day. fucking life.
i'm not here. this isn't happening.
[later]
it's 23h. tomorrow's another day in cologne: the ups lecture series: manuel
de landa will be there to give a talk on deleuze. i'm feeling like i'm
getting ill. headache. managed to get over some pretty bad moments today.
i need more irony. in my life and in the journal. to keep it interesting.
to keep it from coming apart. the bad moments where those when the senselessness
hit me. even the crying won't help then. or the walking. or the writing.
or the working and then i still long for your touch cause i know i'm
saved i know i'm saved i know i'm saved i know i'm saved in your arms
all the letters and emails and the sympathy and the good wishes and the
friendships and the poems and the songs can't substitute for a 'realationship'.
it
pulls me like an arrow straight to you. xxxx i want to be where you
are or not at all. i had hoped that this would change. but it won't. it
just gets clearer and clearer with each fucking day. and it is this helplessness
that wears me out. where are you? WHERE ARE YOU???
[june 7, 2002]
i'm on the train back home. de landa talked for almost three hours: value
for money. it was great: at first i was so enthusiastic and overwhelmed
by my own sudden and unexpected understanding of those deleuzian terms
he joggled with that i almost started to cry. or at least stand up and
shout out loud: manuel i bow to thee! he's really a performer. later i
wasn't quite sure whether he's not perhaps keeping the level a bit too
low, but than that's better than understanding nothing at all. actually
i wanted to write back to paula on the way home but i forgot my folder
with the emails. [i've got this small blue paper folder and in it i've
got all the emails i still need to answer and a couple of texts i'm working
on and a couple of blank sheets and a couple of paula's poems. there are
also a couple of notes i took in the colloquium for my dissertation but
i guess i'm more or less carrying them around symbolically. maybe i'm an
optimist after all.] i don't even have a proper pan pen
- only red ink. fits my outfit today! if you could see me: i'm wearing
black shoes and black jeans and a shirt with short sleeves that has a floral,
baroque pattern all in bright red, orange and yellow. and to top it i'm
wearing my gray jacket. fashion victim.
a row in front of me there's an asian woman, about 40. she's learning
vocabulary. staring at a sheet of paper and then closing her eyes firmly
and silently moving her lips, forming foreign words. everything's beautiful,
but babe not you or me...
i'd loved to spend more time with blaine today. unfortunately there
was a lot to prepare [be]for the lecture and later i had to catch my train.
i'm hungry. for everything. the skin of my face is greasy and dirty. the
day before yesterday i wrote that blaine thought i wanted to punish myself
and that this wasn't true, that it was about attention but that's not true
as well. it's about intensities. it's about being confronted with a psychic
pain that seems to burst my head: a pressure in my brain that threatens
to crack it by unbearable thoughts and - yes - the old, overused word:
longing. an aching longing that etches into the brain & burns &
beats and the pain becomes so intense and clear and omnipresent that it
has every cell of my body in its grip, the intensity of the longing so
governing that i can hardly move. it sort of frees so much energy that
i might as well self combust and simply go up in flames. and then there's
no other relieve but to distract from this pain by bodily sensations, by
a counter intensity, a pain i can control, by spelling it out, by making
markers and inscribing it onto the outside instead of having it burn away
more & more layers of the inside like i had acid for blood.
and those moments are not even the worst. because they give me space
to act, to fight, as if the skin needed a chance to let out the intensity.
it's so much worse in these other moments when i feel all tension leaving
my body and i'm shrinking together like a leaking balloon because i realize
how senseless all this is and that i've lost her to him. from time to time
this realization is there like a déjà vu and it makes me
powerless & motionless & desperate. ratlos und mutlos. helpless
and discouraged. and then the panic hits.
well, there you have a taste of my capacity for irony. meanwhile it's
0:29 and i'm really, really tired. good night. see you tomorrow.
[june 8, 2002]
weather: medium. mood: pretty well. 5 out of 10. eve's going to come by
tonight. decided to make a cd for suzyv with a couple of poems by paula.
so i've got a new design project that will keep me busy. i think i will
do a small booklet and put it in a dvd box :o) after all this time!
just spent one hour washing the dishes and singing along to the 'sing
sing' cd that i compiled: only songs to sing along to. poor neighbors.
ooh, i forgot: today is 'carnival of cultures': many old-hippies and pedagogic
students are walking through my street with drums and dressed up in colorful,
fancy and supposedly fun costumes. it's like csd without the cause, without
the subculture, without the fun.
[later]
thomas just called. only to ask me what i thought about the ups lecture,
which i thought was pretty nice. he also asked [three times]: 'und sonst?'
which basically is an offer to just tell him how you are but i did not
have the courage - well, is this the right word, i don't know? do i really
mean courage? or do i mean suicidal tendency - to just say: 'i go missing
in my own life. i don't know aynmore what to do...' i might have done so
if my mood wasn't around 5.0 today.
anyway, i'm sick. when i went shopping today i bought a box of cookies
which i ate for breakfast. i used to do so almost every morning. but i
haven't done so for a long time. and obviously i'm not used to it anymore
because now i'm feeling all sticky inside. bleech!
when i went walking i first had to pass the 'carnival of cultures' where
a lot of people in fancy costumes marched after a brazillian rhythm section
and then, on the other side of the hill there suddenly appeared a marching
band from a rifle club and all the members of the club were walking after
them in their uniforms and i couldn't help wondering how structurally similar
both these events were. there must be some human gene that makes people
follow people who have a drum.
[later]
it's 1:30 at night. eve's just left. sade's no ordinary love. give me other
words, please. as soon as the door closed and she was gone my heart started
the transformation again: from flesh and blood to lead. it's hanging like
a weight in my chest now. give me other words. you are here. in my empty
bed. in the silence. in the candles that are slowly burning down one by
one. you are so much here that i ask myself whether he's missing you now.
give me other words. i wish i was in every of these letters. a piece of
me in every single word. i would select all and then hit delete. I DON'T
KNOW WHAT TO DO. I keep hurting & disappointing so many people. like
i hurt & disappointed you. beyond belief. beyond love. i wish i could
make you smile again.
[june 9, 2002]
"I gave you all the love I got
I gave you more than I could give
I gave you love
I gave you all that I have inside
And you took my love
You took my love
Didn't I tell you
What I believe
Did somebody say that
A love like that won't last
Didn't I give you
All that I've got to give baby
I keep crying
I keep trying for you
There's nothing like you and I baby
This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
When you came my way
You brightened every day
With your sweet smile
I keep crying
I keep trying for you
There's nothing like you and I baby
This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Keep trying for you
Keep crying for you
Keep flying for you
Keep flying
I'm falling
I'm falling"
from a mail to paula on Monday, 22 Nov 1999:
It has snowed even more over night. The room is filled with
the dull, dry air from the heating. It's cloudy and it's dark outside,
so I have to switch on the lights to work. But when I look out of my window
on the third floor, my eyes hurt because of the dirty white which is everywhere.
In my head I'm hearing a William S. Burroughesque voice saying "There's
nothing like you and I, Baby...". Repeatedly. Constantly. Take everything
I want to be, everyone I want to be with, everyplace I want to be in, put
it in a bottle, place it on a table in a small house. And then take that
place on earth which is the farest away from that bottle on that table
in that house. And there I am today. Half a world away.
[june 10, 2002]
can't really write today, there's too much fuzz going on: the 'team pynchon'
is working and whirling around in the office. i'm such a pinhead. thomas
asked repeatedly how i am today and he even closed the door to the office
when he asked me. so actually i COULD have talked to him but you know what:
i did not have the courage. silly.
anyway the students are on strike for an unlimited time which means
that our seminar won't take place. i'm going to meet with blaine and his
friend cedric and propbably a couple of other people tonight for cocktails
again :-)
the mails i still want to answer are piling on my desk. thought i could
do it this morning on the train but i was too tired.
sad fact: when i DID try to answer parts of an email this morning i
thought about you and how you held me and how save i felt in your arms
and that you're holding somebody else now but that you would only hold
somebody who you WANT to hold, who you really love so who am i to bewail
your joy??!
[much later]
at 1:30 in the morning i'm sitting on a strange bed in a strange room of
a strange house in a strange street, so far from where you are. we went
to a restaurant. it's called el
inca. almost a name. k. talked about her ex-boyfriend who cheated on
her while she was in england and when she came back for the christmas holidays
someone else was living with him. his name was oliver. then we talked about
cities. and she said she needed to move on every couple of years, out of
the town she knows, see something new, try something new. i saw you. and
it hurt. 'you are the one solid the spaces lean on.' my life is coming
apart. and the confusing thing is that i will not understand these words
tomorrow morning anymore.
[june 11, 2002]
everybody's sitting in our office, watching soccer: there's even a bunch
of people standing on the corridor gazing through the door. i am not allowed
to move in the office because the picture starts to blur as soon as i am
walking past the antenna.
[later]
it's six now and blaine and i are having dinner at the cafeteria now. thomas
invited us to come to l.a. [he's going to the states with his family for
half a year next month] this christmas for the mla conference which will
be in san diego. i would love to but i have no idea how to pay for this?
it would be the flight and the hotel and the food and the taxi and i'm
really living hand to mouth. i don't have ANY money left at the end of
the month even when i'm living here in germany on basically cola light
and salad :o(
also thinking so much into the future scares me because what if you
haven't come back by that time? the thought that the situation might be
unchanged sends shivers of panic down my spine
this morning: thomas came into the office. we were alone on the corridor.
it was early. nobody around yet. thomas: 'how are you? und, wie isses?'
and i just said: it's tiresome to be me. i'm just fucking stupid. telling
all this makes me angry at myself. it's pointless to try to describe how
much i missed you yesterday night. it's pointless to write anything about
you at all. it's pointless to write anything at all.
[later]
it felt so real it felt so real i've just had the worst nightmare in a
long, long time. it's 22:30 and when i came back from work at 19:30 to
the room where i'm staying in cologne i actually wanted to write a couple
of mails but i fell asleep and i dreamed about her parents: her father
and i slept in the same flat and when i woke up he talked to me and he
was dressed in a teddy-bear costume and talked like a little child and
i tried to get away from him but he followed me through the whole flat
and then he said: "it must be because i have become a grandfather last
week!" and i thought NO! THIS CANNOT BE!!! IT'S ONLY SIX MONTHS!! and i
woke up from my own crying it was so real now it's 22:30 and i'm afraid
to get back to sleep again i'm so afraid of the future i don't know what
to do i need you you are not here i don#t know what to do i'm so afraid
without you
[june 12, 2002]
hm, just returned from cologne. i've got four calls on my answering machine,
but the caller hung up every time. wonder who's trying to call me so desperately.
weather: cloudy. mood-o-meter: 4 out of 10. on friday the conference will
start. today thomas had to give an interview for a radio station. it will
be aired in a feature called 'mosaik' on wdr3 tomorrow between 8 and 9h.
so be prepared! there's not much more to say. my life is boring. go ask
oliver! song-on-repeat of the day: sade - cherish the day.
from a mail to angelina:
and this is the confusing part: because it isn't a stable desperation.
sometimes i manage to watch myself and i'm thinking: come on! it's not
so bad after all! you're smart, you're - well - at least 'interesting'-looking:
get someone else & keep living your life. and then again there are
nights like yesterday night when i just don't have any idea how to go an
with my life at all. it just seems broken beyond repair. and i don't have
the strength to repair anything. i feel like drifting on top of a coffin
in the middle of the ocean, waiting to be picked up by a whaling vessel
or be washed upon the shore. words are a paddle and a sail sometimes but
i don't know the direction and i don't know any harbor. in a way the online
journal is a daily message in a bottle that i keep sending off hoping it
might lead somebody to rescue me. "find me please oh find me" is the last
line of a poem by paula. she knows the sharks as well. she knows the fear
of drowning. and i know that you do, too.
[june 13, 2002]
spent all morning at the doctor's office waiting to get a prescription
for contact lenses. then worked on atoms-dust and packed my things for
cologne. this morning thomas was on the radio talking about the conference
that will start tomorrow. so i probably won't really manage to update the
journal the next couple of days. weather: cold. mood-o-meter: 4.2. song-on-repeat
of the day: still sade - cherish the day.
[june 14, 2002]
6:02 am: hu! baaaaad dreams. we met, i wanted that her feelings had changed
but she was just looking at me tired, bored, genervt, while i was sleeping
and i had to walk to get to her all through town and was wearing a special
space suit and i was walking over a flea market trying to find the shortest
way to her and then there was a little girl and we had to find a hidden
way through a labyrinth in an old castle to get to her.
8:12 am
i'm on the train. my backpack is heavy with all the stuff to spend
a week in cologne. my thoughts & feelings are unsure of themselves.
the predominate emotion today: Fear with a capital F. what if i met her
and it is like in the dream. what if nothing had changed? what if we will
never get together again? please. i NEED some hope. headache. slight fits
of panic come rising from my stomach and i swallow them quickly before
they can reach the heart or brain. WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I
NEED YOU? AND I HEAR YOU SHOUTING BACK: WHERE WERE *YOU* WHEN I NEEDED
SOMEBODY? and maybe that's the difference. the difference between 'somebody'
& 'you'. you've got somebody now & it scares the shit out of me
to think that he's a you for you. i don't understand it. it hurts so much,
this missing you, this having lost you, i don't know it won't wear out
and it's worse than the worst words. i don't know what to do with my life
i don't know what to do with my love i don't know what to do with my song
& i don't know what to do with my words.
[june 14/15, 2002]
friday|saturday | 1:49am - a lightning comes across the sky. silently &
repeatedly. i'm charged. my hair is standing up in spikes, pointing into
dark and viole[n]t clouds as if to make a connection. my heart is glowing
into something, it's crackling and more and more flashes are lighting across
the dark city. it's so beautiful. god is here. she is here. there's so
much to write, so much to tell: about the feeling i had when i listened
to a reading of gravity's rainbow, about the conference [all goes very
well] about that remark somebody made in the dubini documentary on pynchon
that his writing is like an atom-smasher and those were almost the same
words i used in the introduction to the [atoms-dust]-cd. i could hardly
breathe when i saw this! about that girl i saw today at the screening of
the film who i pointed out to blaine because i felt a sort of instant interest
that i did not know before and then he made me realize that she looked
like you. flash upon flash. i've never been in a thunderstorm like this.
the rain is drumming onto the roof my heart is drumming too and suzanne's
soap+water on the md. i have to get up early tomorrow, only 4 hours of
sleep. god, this storm is FINALLY an eadquate representation of what is
raging INSIDE! i want to write. words as beautiful as this last paragraph
from gravity's rainbow which is just like the ending of beautiful losers.
has nobody noticed this before? where are you all, i am here, electric
and magnetic beaming out into the rain to bielefeld, iowa, herford and
new york, into a night, your hearts & bones, where are you now that
i dissolve so quickly, torn by the storm and ripped apart by a lightning
that could come straight out of your eyes. 'that's when i know the old
longing for you' - 2:03am and where are you? i'm sending those clouds to
your house now although i have no idea where you're living now. hit me,
god, hit me! and perhaps you will think of me with every flash with every
crash, hit me, god, hit me and be happy then, please be happy then and
hit me god hit me. i want to write! you into the sky, you out of my heart,
you onto a page - i want to write. that's all i ever wanted! i feel it
now a certainty as dark as the night with the power failure all over town
and the zickzack of god's broken neon lights - i want to write! and to
be with you. two certainties. both hurt me, both cut into me. both won't
let me have peace, sweet peace. i can't sleep, the lights, the thunder
like a thousand bass drums rolling over the roofs, pressing a wave of hot,
electric summer night air in front of it. i love you. whatever happens
it's important that you know this. write it down! now. please. i love you.
please. NEVER forget that! i love you. drops as tender as your finger on
my face.
[june15/16, 2002]
saturday|sunday. 0:33. i'm back from the conference. tonight we watched
a film about pynchon in which thomas has a small part and when he came
on we [bernd, bruno, nicola and i] lit lighters and waved them slowly above
our heads. that girl who looks like her was there again. felt my heart
beating faster. silly. tomorrow mr. kittler will be keynote speaker. thought
about thomas' 'behavior of fleeing' after conferences: after 'chaos/control:complexity'
he went to hannover. it was the end of the conference and we were standing
in the parking lot when he told us that he will change the universities.
after the conference on foldings in hannover two years later he went to
cologne. and now - another two years later - he will go to the states two
weeks after the pynchon conference. on july 4th he'll fly to la for 9 months
:o((((
i'm so tired that the skin on top of my head hurts.
[june 18, 2002]
just a few words because i cannot really write: it's too hot. a heatwave
swept over cologne and this is something that i was not prepared for [clotheswise]
at all. it's 8:30 in the morning and it must already be 28°. i couldn't
really sleep last night because of the heat. it did not cool down significantly
during the night. i wish it would rain today: long and strongly. the conference
went very well. everybody was content and happy and we parted just like
a small family. also the teampynchon worked together very smoothly and
it was a lot of fun. although most of the papers were disappointing, but
then that's the way it goes at conferences. kittler was great. nobody understood
his point because he was so confused and unstructured in his talk, but
his performance was pretty impressive. he ripped apart satre with two sentences.
sunday night we all went out together to get drunk but for some odd reason
i was the only one doing so. talked to irene about that girl i saw [she's
her friend] and she said that she wasn't really my cup of tea.
[june 19, 2002]
it's raining. thank god! i'm still in cologne but i will return tonight.
i'm tired. but working in the team is fun. the conference got us closer
together i think. right now i'm working on the hollow earth translations.
and believe it or not! there is a mine shaft underneath the main building
of cologne university. this is not a joke! it has been built for educational
purposes before the second world war and it is not 'in use' anymore. but
one day each year it is open to the public. that's sooo cool! because it
would be the perfect place to have an hollow earth exhibition! we've been
thinking and thinking about the appropriate venue in cologne and the cities
nearby and we've been sitting on a mine shaft all the time! unfortunately
thomas was not really impressed by that. when i told him that i was a little
disappointed about his lack of enthusiasm he said: "maybe that's because
i have a family at home and you're sitting all alone with basically no
life and can think about those things all the time..." he's got such a
charming personality.
[later]
i'm on the crowded train. it's humid. i'm tired. short sentences are better
than nothing. thought all day long in short sentences. they're so easy
to handle. they're so easy to break down. what if this state of being without
you turns out to be a life sentence. i wouldn't know how to read it. sometimes
my mind goes blank. i realize how much thomas' departure troubles and confuses
me. everything. everything in it's right pl in it's righ in it's right
pla in it's right place. why can't i think in songs? try to say try try
to say i don't know what to say except that i'm tired. yesterday and today
and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. i'm aching right behind the eyes
and i tend to blink longer than usual, longer than necessary. the sun is
shining forcefully into the train, the windows are sealed. we're waiting
at the platform. for ten minutes now. it's getting hot. it's too crowded.
the air is getting thinner with each breath that i take. the shadows on
the paper are sharp, the light blinding. the windows are sealed. the doors
are locked. we're still waiting. there's no movement. sweat running down
my temples. the windows are sealed. i'm having daydreams of ramming my
elbow against them, daydreams of crashing them and the cold sound of the
breaking glass would accompany the wave of fresh air of movement of the
end of waiting, the end of waiting: but nothing happens. it's so hot in
here.
i'm home now. only two anonymous calls this week.
[june 20, 2002]
oh boy! i'm wearing my new contact lenses and suddenly the monitor has
double size! it took me half an hour to get them in! it was one of the
most embarrassing moments in my life: me trying in vain to struggle with
my eyes that kept blinking when they should not. also bought two new plain
t-shirts, a jeans and socks. second most embarrassing moment today: i offered
martin my "uneingeschränkte solidarität", my boundless solidarity
and offered to get drunk with him because his girlfriend left him when
his girlfriend hasn't actually left him but only moved to berlin to make
her phd in biology. there you go, the day can only get better. weather:
sunny and humid. tonight is rehearsal. mood-o-meter: 5.1 out of 10. i kept
staring at myself in the shop windows. so strange to see myself without
glasses. i did not know how i looked like without them because i couldn't
see anything. i'm really short sighted. -3,5 and -7. next week i will get
a new haircut. then i'm all remodeled except for my heart. oh well, who
cares for that?
[later]
rehearsal's over. i'm such an idiot. i forgot the md with the latest version
of 'nerves end' on it! i fell in love with it anew. we had to figure out
how we played it last time, because we developed quite a complex ending.
[the nerves end at the fingertips] || all day long the day has been
dying | all day long
you said to me sighing: | "i can’t scream as loud as you’re laughing
| and you’re laughing
| and i can’t sing as loud as you love me | do you love me?" || the
nerves end at the
fingertips | i can’t do more than kiss your lips | and it’s the same
old fear | we can be
close but we will never || never be near || we’re bound by skin | we’re
caught in flesh || all
day long the day has been dying | all day long you sat there crying
|| the nerves end at
your fingertips | the nerves end at your fingertips | and it’s the
same old fear | we can be
close but we will never || never be near || we’re bound by skin | we’re
caught in
flesh|| we’re bound by skin [break after end of measure, then start
the chorus new]: | we’re bound by skin | we’re caught in flesh [break on
flesh, then restart chorus] | we’re bound by skin | we’re caught in flesh
[break on flesh, then last chord on a-minor]
the opening song was 'a tree, a rock, a cloud' [as usual] and i introduced
it: "dieses schöne lied, das so gut ist, dass man beinah sagen kann,
es sei gut, handelt von natur, mode und verbrechen..." okay, it only works
in german and you might take a couple of minutes to get it, but i thought
it was pretty funny. this afternoon it took me 45 minutes [really!] to
fish the lenses out of my eyes. fucking hell! if i wouldn't look so sexy
and cool without glasses i might as well throw the contacts away. it's
not really a pleasant feeling to finger in your eyes, especially when you
have so large and motorically [?] unskilled hands as mine.
on the way to the subway i saw the moon again in
the clear, still blue sky: a pale escaped balloon beyond return, retrieval
or arrival. there's a child SOMEwhere shedding tears for having lost it,
for not holding on firmly enough, regretting the moment of carelessness,
shocked of seeing it rising away, making it feel the distance of the sky.
a disappointment that you cannot cure with sweets. not even with a new
balloon. a disappointment that returns. every night. with each new moon..
[much later]
it's 1:45. i've just finished my parts of the readings for atoms-dust.
my eyes ache. i've got a mail from eve that troubles me deeply. seems i
manage to hurt everybody i love. cedric wrote as well:
Subject: Moon/Shine
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 01:27:00 +0200
From: <cornfield@XXXX.de>
To: ph@entropic-empire.com
Dear YOU,
it's late at night and (just as usual) I've read your diary before going
to bed. And tonight ..., again, there was this superb bit about the moon.
Am I the only one of your readers who thinks that you suddenly rise even
above your 'normal' brilliancy when writing about the moon? In fact, whilst
reading your new entry I was listening to my new (old) Herman's Hermits-CD
I bought today. And just in the right moment there was a song on called
"Moonshine Man". Perfect. If there's a writer doing her/his thing 'on the
moon' I almost everytime immediately fall for her/him.
I would have tonight, had I not already fallen for all of your talents,
so long ago.
Always yours/remember me,
Cedric.
[june 21, 2002]
it's 0:22 on a friday night. cedric came by and we went to a 'biergarten'.
i'm tired. worked all day on atoms-dust, it's finished now. i'm tired.
problems that i can't really talk about here. bad news. i don't want to
write about it because i don't want to hurt that person even more. seems
like i'm doing everything the wrong way. i'm tired. my eyes feel like..i
don't know. there's no similie for it. they're justz aching and heavy,
heavy, heavy. it's dark outside. it's somehow like the whole world was
derranged: angles and perspectives and views that should be familiar are
strangely strange.actually i wanted to write a letter to thams
tomas thomas, but i'm too tired. i need to sleep badly. wish you
were here to watch my sleep. wish you were here instead of where you are
right now: in your lonely apartment, in a painting, in a tour bus, in a
disco, in your car, in his arms. "these drunken thoughts, these saturday
thoughts. the tiger embellishing itself."
[june 22, 2002]
5:01 am bad bad bad dreams. she's talking to him on the phone and i am
coming storming across the room to fetch the receiver and i'm shouting
insults into it and he just says softly: 'i can understand that you're
upset and i have the appropriate chaos theory to fit your behaviour...'
she's lost she's lost she's lost this feeling of fear comes darkening my
mind like ink dropping into water and i hear the clock ticking mockingly
because with each second more time without her passes, wasted life, lost
life, never to make up for, gone and i fold my hands behind my neck and
press my elbows together in front of my brow as if this nutcracker grip
could control the dark cloth that unfolds cruelly in the hot wind above
the dessert in my head. stop it stop it
[much later]
it's almost nine o'clock and the keyboard in the chorus of soap&water
is so achingly beautiful. i don't know what to write, there's no room for
words tonight, there's no room for anything tonight. the thought of you
makes me smash my head against the floor.
[june, 23, 2002]
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.help
me, please oh help me
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. |
i don't know what to do. cedric called. i want to be with her. i know that
this futile, ridiculous insistence is the shortest way to alienate all
my friends and the people who try to help and support me. but tonight i'm
surer about this than ever before: i want to be with her. took the rest
of the valerian pills to calm me down. there's fear in every corner of
my flat. it has your face. it has his name. how can i sleep when i know
that it will sneak into my dreams as soon as i have closed my eyes. the
mild summer air and the bird's singing outside. where are you? i want to
be there as well. i'm so tired of this longing, of this hurting. wie oft
muss ich das noch schreiben? if there was a painless way out of it you
could bet his fucking cute ass i'd take it. i'm not here. this isnt happening.
[june 24, 2002]
4:26 am more bad & bad & tiresome dreams: she was back and we were
on holidays on an island but she kept disappearing, she was there with
all the overwhelming feeling of unity and then she was suddenly lost again
with all the overwhelming feeling of loss and fear. god, i dont know what
to do. i dont know why i just don't go to her and ring her doorbell and
what then? what then? what if HE opened the door what if she just said:
"hi!" and nothing else? - i'm so stupid. i wish i could make you see somehow
how much i miss you. and i wish this could change your feelings. nothing
will change your feelings. nothing will change.
[later]
it's strange how you stand beside yourself watching - as if uninvolved
- how things are falling apart. the university has reduced my working hours
from 19 to 15 hours a week because they don't have enough money. i have
no idea how to live of that. seems like i have to take another job. or
sell drugs. or prostitute myself. so, make me an offer [only ladies, please]!
nicole [from the teampynchon] asked what had happened and i said that
i had fought a cat. and in a way i did [well, there's a subtle pun to 20th
century german literature for you!]
right now the hot wind is blowing through the office, it's 6:45 pm and
the sun is falling through the shades and onto the keyboard, highlighting
letters like it wanted to seduce me to type them. thomas bought me a book
from the used book stand in front of the main building: "Die Südpolexpedition
des Kapitän Scott" [see, i CAN write in capitols after all!]. he said
it was a compensation because he had made fun of me being so enthusiastic
about the mine underneath the university. i told him that i would really
disappointed if it turned out that he *did* have a conscience...
paula wrote:
The truck you thought was white
passes you on the highway
and in the setting sun,
you see it's baby blue.
Deceived by light again,
that woman with surrender in her hands.
And you ask, why does night
have to be so sweet?
Day fades into it so knowingly.
This is all i am
and this is the light
i can give.
[later]
i'm sitting on the campus in the late evening sun. the light is unfamiliar,
i'm on a strange planet. below on the grass the soccer team is exchanging
high fives. my jeans are too short. if i could i would sing now. but what
the fuck for - you wouldn't hear it anyway. i could sing a symphony for
you darling, and still i'd be on my feet. i'm going to meet blaine &
the cologne gang in an hour in some supposedly hip cologne café.
i don't really feel like meeting people tonight. but maybe that's the best
precondition. next to me there's a young woman sitting in the grass, writing
on a small pad she's holding on her knees. i wonder what it is she's writing
down. prose or poems? shopping lists? a letter? a confession? songs? random
words? a list of lovers? will my name ever be on it? "i've bound all your
words around me. and all your hugs and all your sympathy. but it seems
like it can't keep me from coming apart."
and i remember, painfully, painfully, that night when we were driving
home from tara and cedric's - it was late at night and the streets were
completely empty and we were listening to a suzanne vega tape and 'tired
of sleeping' came on. and all of a sudden she started to cry violently.
her body remained very still, only streams of tears running down her cheeks,
mirroring the faint street lamp light. i pulled over and i asked her what
was wrong and she said that she had to think about that old man in the
'tired of sleeping' video clip and that it was him who was singing oh
mum | i wonder when i'll be waking | it's just that there's so much to
do | and i'm tired of sleeping and she was crying so badly that she
could hardly speak and her voice was breaking and my heart was as well
and i don't think that i ever loved her more than in that moment when the
song played and the night went by and we sat hugging each other in a cold
car on an empty street. i can't measure what i've lost. nichts wird wieder
gut werden. and then - while walking through the city to meet blaine and
the others - i am gazing into the shopwindow of the womensbookstore and
as if i'd known it her book is standing there on display: blue linnen,
simone de beauvoir in half profile and a winterly paris in her back, her
name below the picture. where are you when traces of you are everywhere?
[june 25, 2002]
there's a small table in front of thomas' office where people deposit old
magazines or books and somebody put a calender from 2001 there. it was
from the publishing house where she worked. it had an add for her book
glowing from the backcover. Waiting for the spotlights to hit me. it's
17:15 and sunny and warm. i'm going to sit on the campus now and wait for
blaine to finish his shift and to join me having dinner in the cafeteria,
so you know where to find me if you want me left of center wondering about
you. see you tomorrow!
[june 26, 2002]
it's 18:04, i'm sitting in the office, sun on my face. mood-o-meter: about
3.9. tired factor: 7 out of ten. my eyes are aching. was at the hairdresser
yesterday. tomorrow night the teampynchon is going to have dinner together,
on hanjo and john. looking forward to that. thomas' still in the office
next door. nobody else is around, everybody has gone home. i've sent a
version of [atoms-dust] to moni on monday and she will give it to suzanne
on saturday if there is a chance. summer is hard. privacy and intimacy
are acted out on the street. i don't want to be confronted with intimacy
right now. hell! "right now"! listen to me! as if seven months were "right
now"! i'm such a sissy. i center my life around the past as if i was afraid
of letting go. if only there was something new. i don't want to hurt you
[talking to somebody else now]. how is anybody supposed to understand me
if even i won't...
seems i have to start seeling drugs. no offers to work as a call boy
so far...
[june 27, 2002]
weather: cloudy. mood: not worth mentioning. here's text from yesterday
evening: "the swallows are not here yet - but i know that they will be
in an hour, shooting through the air like tornado-jets. i'm on the roof
of eva&ralf's flat, awfully tired. no music." there you go. tells you
pretty much everything about yesterday night. sat on the roof. cried. tried
to write - failed. cried. talked to cedric on the phone. cried. tried to
sleep.
[june 28, 2002]
tori amos' piano in the office. her version famous blue raincoat. it's
9:11, friday morning, i see you there with the rose in your teeth
there ain't much to write. we all went out yesterday night and it was quite
nice. thomas even stayed until 11 in the night, which is highly unusual.
yes,
and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes, i thought it was there
for good, so i never tried. my heart is i don't know,
there isn't anything to say. applied physics: the minimization of surface
tension on the "d" and "m" and ","
[later]
somebody filled out the questionnaire. hooray!!
the rain is running down the glass of the train in long, thin lines, sculptured
by the wind. it's hot in here, you cannot open the windows. behind me two
women are talking about suzanne's gig at the festival the coming sunday
"...und die Suzanne Vega spielt ja auch!" i'm tired. blaine said today
that he didn't want to read any depressing entries anymore but only fun
ones about great parties and exciting one night stands. yeah! sure! keep
wishing! i'm still not even close to finishing that letter to thomas.
got one call on the answering machine. it's her grandmother: "philipp,
it's me: xxxx's granny! i want to make a cake for you next week. i've told
you that i wouldn't forget you. i know that you like cake. wolfgang &
angelika are still on holidays and i've asked xxxx whether you're on holidays
and she said 'no!' [wonder how she knows!] philipp PLEASE call me back!"
*sigh* wonder what i should do now. actually i'd like to call her and talk
to her. but then i know that i wouldn't stand it if she mentioned her or
her being together with him. and also i know that i would probably only
see it as a slim chance to get into contact with her again. i'd be hoping
that her granny would tell her about me and how unhappy i am and how much
i miss her - no! this probably wouldn't be good.
[june 29, 2002]
well, she called again, saying that she'd be really disappointed if i didn't
call back. also it's nice to see that your parents can still surprise you:
when i talked to my mother on the phone yesterday night [because xxxx's
granny had called THEM as well] she asked me whether i knew laurie anderson.
"sure" i said "do you know her record 'strange angels'?" my mother wanted
to know. "sure" i said and then she asked me to copy it for her because
she was at a seminar for neurolinguistic programming on the weekend and
they played it in the breaks. "i kind of liked it" she said. i'd never
guessed that one day my mother would ask me to tape laurie anderson for
her!
i've got to call thomas tonight to ask whether his office is freezing over...
[later]
her grandmother called again just the other minute. "philipp, please excuse
me if i hurt you. i didn't meant to hurt you by calling you. i just wanted
to do you a favor. i'm sorry. bye." boy, who wrote this fucking corny script?
and where are all the cameras?
[later]
i've just called her back and i'll go visiting her and fetching the cake
next thursday. otherwise she will keep involving my parents - and i want
to prevent that! and she exactly said what cedric predicted: "philipp,
there are so many women out there. and you are such a nice guy...!" THAT'S
NOT WHAT I WANT TO HEAR! WHAT I WANT TO HEAR IS "XXXX HAS TALKED SO MUCH
ABOUT YOU SINCE OLIVER HAS LED HER DOWN AND BETRAYED HER AND HURT HER.
SHE IS THINKING SO MUCH ABOUT YOU BUT SHE DOESN'T DARE TO CALL YOU". fuck
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm not here this isn't
happening i'm not here this isn't happening I'M NOT HERE
[june 30, 2002]
rehearsal went well. next week daniel's on vacation so rehearsal is cancelled.
in the rehearsal room next door a band was playing with a keyboard and
danieland i thought that it might be a good idea to get a fourth member
of the nerve bible, an attractive female keyboard player. but reiner is
reluctant.
there's not much more to report. handling the contact lenses is getting
easier. it only takes me ten minutes to put them in and to get them out.
still i don't think that i will be wearing them in cologne next week, that
is: tomorrow. i will take the first train so good night everybody.
this ends another fucking wasted month. you know, living without you
is not really living. i'm only living to be with you again. that's why
i get up in the morning. the thought that you're together with him until
you're old, that you'll love him even in ten, twenty, thirty years wriggles
like a snake in my belly and makes me sick.
i want to replace you. i don't know yet by what. but i will find out!
find me please oh find me
