Sorry for being so uncommunicative for so long. I've been burning the candle from both ends for weeks now. So today I crashed. Hard. Slept for a long time, and although I've been reflecting and plan-adjusting and recharging as much as I could before, too, this stolen day obviously did the trick.

( So, here you go. )

And in all that chaos in my life I find a single moment, far from the rollercoaster of findings, fears and fiction, to just warm my ice cold hands on a hot cup of darjeeling tea (with sugar and milk), saying nothing, breathing deeply, and through the thin wall, behind which an oil painting is forged, a high voice sings to me with so much beautiful force: this is a gift, it comes with a price.

So here I am again. Fate handed me life like I always wanted it on a silver platter, about three levels of self confidence too high, and just like I always do, I didn't even pause to think but grabbed the chance and jumped up. Now I hang onto the silver platter for dear life and try not to move at all, lest I fall down again, maybe even lower than the levels I had fought myself onto last year.

No, I was not prepared at all to nonchalantely accept a mini position at our university, and yes, I am shocked into panic and pumped full of adrenalin each time my former teachers come into this room that I share with four others, and ask for cookies or try to do smalltalk in Japanese.
I don't speak Japanese, by the way. Not really.
No, I can't believe at all that my beautiful gay soulmate from Chicago would still be interested in me. I completely missed his birthday, by the way.
And no, I have no idea how this happened, in our Bed&Breakfast in London:

Her name ist Jessica d'Este, and she is an oldschool bohemian lady, with long grey hair, a large hat collection and a warm, sharp voice. Her english had an American accent but the lilt of her Italian ancestry. She is a known British poet, though not very well-known, and her poems, that she leaves on her guests beds, called to me, made me smile and say out loud "Yes!".
So the very first evening I went to the common/breakfast room of her Bed&Breakfast, where she and her partner James were talking, and gave them the expensive chocolates that bear our family name as a hosts gift. I was pretty proud of myself that I had thought of this gesture, and apparently James, with his deep, resonant voice and his widely flung presence, is a chocolate fan. He instantly took both bars and went off to hide them. Jessica laughed at him, oh, always so much love between them. And we got to talk.
Five minutes later she says, I kid you not, and oh god how hard that is to write down:
"I know I just met someone that will play a major role in my life."
And: "You know, someone has to step into my footsteps, especially regarding this!" and a wide move of her hand include the Bed&Breakfast and her whole life, projects like "'Bringing art to life', in two senses of this, you understand, right?"
And I have shaking, icecold hands, while she waves this dream of a life right in front of my nose like this, and I say: "God, stop, you're making me fall in love!" And she laughs, short, sharp, warm and not loud at all.
Of course I took a look at the german translation of her book, when she asked me to. Took me three evenings, sitting on her cozy striped couch in this room, in which only all the echoes of lived moments made everything real, because it looked so much like a movie set. Henni was always already in bed then, exhausted by late puberty, a barely mastered foreign language and so much to see, so much to do.
So I sat there, and no panic came to me, instead this feeling of rightness, of belonging and silent satisfaction. Not a powerful feeling. I had to listen very hard to recognize it, and just for a moment I was so astonished, thinking I felt too little for such a beautiful moment, until I suddenly understood.
I knew this effect. I've had this before.
It was like her coming back home to me, filling the hole in my life that had her shape, and suddenly there was a lack of harsh missing. Contentment.
It was like meeting Glenn, and feeling two souls bump into each other and click, just like that. It was so self-evident. It just was, and worked, and was fun and nice and not very remarkable... until he flew away, and the silent hurt of missing started.
And so I sat there and thought that yes, things that fit us, that were just meant to be, they click and then you don't think too much about them anymore.



It's weeks later now, and I am running against a wall again. Just because something was meant to be doesn't mean at all that we were born prepared for it. I didn't mail Glenn now for quite some time, and the longer it takes, the harder it seems to be. I didn't find any time yet to do some translation work for Jessica, although I promised her to write as soon as possible.
And at work I hide behind a smile and a voice that none of my friends would recognize: muted, nonmusical, drap and light grey.
I am standing still again, watching chances hold up and not fall apart from my neglect - apparently they are too big to crumble that easily.
But I am running out of time. I need to grow able to stand tall on a silver platter, three levels up from where I see myself right now. I can feel it all under my fingertips, but right now I am not quite reaching out to this life.
I am looking at holes, to try and measure their width and weight. I will not see the value of these gifts when they have clicked into their place again. And it feels so important to keep a sharp eye on them.

Normally I would have written an entry about London asap (and believe me, I tried) in which I would have tried to form the experience into something more like literature, to distance myself from it, to be able to look at it from above, which would have helped a lot with evaluating it.
I just couldn't. At first I thought that might have been because of recent events, in which different people have told me how intimidating my entries are, and how unintentionally hurtful in their self-assuredness and literaricy. But I explained then that those entries are most of all for myself, to remind me of things. I don't write "And I deserve this!" or "This was meant to be!" because I really feel it. I write it *so that I may* feel it. And they understood and so all was right again.
So no, this was not the origin of the blockade in my head.

It's just this: The moment I write this down is the moment I stipulate it. Make it part of my story, let it all click into my soul, bond with my life.

And this seems to be my strategy for encounters with really big chances: If they feel like they belong to me, I close my eyes and jump. And while my eyes are closed or as long as there are enough distractions, everything feels, well, ordinary. And then I open them up again, look around and suddenly find myself way too high up for my self esteem, so I cower and cling and stop and try to breathe shallowly. I hide and waste my time and don't tell anybody too much about anything. Feeling like an intruder, faker, impositor.

She said: "You need to come back here, as soon as you can."
She said: "So you are a researcher at your university?"
She said: "This place attracts a special kind of people."
She said: "I knew you would get the meaning of this."
She told her friends, when Henni and I had already left the hotel lounge and she thought I couldn't hear her anymore: "She studied biology for a spell, like me! And, listen, this is SO interesting, she lives in Cologne, right, and she and her friends share this flat..."
She said: "I won't tell you who did the original translation yet, just look through it, if you would?" and later: "Can you believe that she teaches German at Harvard? And she was born in Germany..." and "Yeah, she just didn't get this at all."
Time and time again she replied: "EXACTLY!", throwing up her arms and smiling at me happily with tightly closed lips and sparkling dark eyes.
She said regarding my working on her poems: "This is a labour of love", saying my name with this funny american accent. And the morning of the day we returned to Germany, she gave me books and scripts and unpublished poems and detailed instructions and when I followed her around, grinning and being packed with literature like a mule, she said it again:
"Oh, this is a labour of love!"
And I said: "Yes."

My Japanese might be abysmal, I might go too far sometimes, and I might play shy and timid as long as I am terrified like this, but

I am not an impositor.

I really am this bright. I really do love language and "the fortunate surprise of a necessary poetry".
I did not cheat to get these chances, I did not lie to keep those older friendships, I did not fake anything to meet these people.
I just acted like I knew no fear.

I need to let got of the brink, stop looking down at the alarming height I have conquered in just one jump, I need to stand up, turn away from the latest step and start looking around on my current level, maybe even dare to look up for the next one in a while.
Translating Jessicas poems, combing through Dad's texts and alphas collisions, glueing advice and shiny stickers into the promise of eternal sisterly love, listening to her reading to me, listening to me reading to her, brushing out the winter fur of my boycat, sharing a laugh with S., both of us happily trusting and overjoyed that the other one is happy too, sharing a run with P., talking breathlessly the whole time, sharing a shibboleth like "bzuh!", learning, compiling, writing it all down...
This is a labour of love.

There is nothing better on a day like this than friends and family.

I passed the state of "stressed" and dove headfirst into "major self doubts", at the latest when Prof. Ehmcke wasn't there today (despite the interwebs telling me differently). There is only a very small chance of meeting her before I have to hand in my thesis now, and if she has anything major to critisize, there will be nearly no time to take that into consideration.
Well, I always tend to work through things like that without the teacher's help. But oh, was that a dark, dark depression looming at the horizon... only disturbed by lighting bright panic attacks lying in waiting.

But my little sister walked with me to university and back and questioned my panic and my doubts, talked against the tide and diverted me.
The whole day the half of my brain currently residing in Japan bombarded me with mails of luuuurve. *____*
Then I got a Go!Go!Go!-package from al_pha, with chocolates and striped socks "against cold feet", energy tea, lottery scratch tickets, caffeine, anti-stress shower gel and lids "for a good conclusion". :D
And in the end, one major obstacle - Japanese text - seemed to dissappear from the list of Problems-that-I-just-can't-solve, when I timidly dared to ask good friends for help.
Should do that more often. Ask for help, I mean. I'm really bad at that. XD

But there it is. May our landladies be major bitches, may time run out and money be scarce... they just don't let me fail, my wolves. And so I'm working late in the evening now and I am actually getting things done. And tomorrow we will sign the contract for the new appartement. And afterwards I will treat myself to some dinner with wolves... and some Batman. Evvverybody loves Batman.

The contemporary possibility of immediate gratification makes every effort that much harder. Don't forget: The satisfaction is stronger and stays longer if you strive for it.

Can't help it, it's just that time of the year. Mid-October seems to be my personal New Year's.

Everything's preparing to move, and yes, we're appartement-hunting again. It's long overdue. It's bad timing. It's way too early.
I want, I NEED to live in an old building again, were the rooms are high, the windows big and the floors creak. I grew up in one, overlooking the sea. The sun woke me every morning (unless I had to get up before dawn). We could hear the children from the nearby playground and tourists tours on aeroplanes roaring through the sky in summer. The doors were old, wooden and beautifully ornate. At night, when I couldn't sleep, I drilled a hole into the wall near my headboard, because I really wanted to spy on our neighbours. My parents never knew about that until we moved. Dad said it was an impressively deep hole for someone with only an old knitting needle. Then he pretended to look reprimanding and taught me how to close holes like that with plaster. And their parties were always just a very big sliding door away.
I want high ceilings again, pleeeease....

Today I woke with a backache so bad that I just couldn't stand up. And I just bought a harder mattress to avoid this kind of ache. So another strategy to get by without sports goes down the drain. I need to move myself. I need to work out already.
I could be the determined, cute jogger on the late evening street. I could be the hard working student mumbling vocabulary. I could be.

I seem to have lost the ability to drown myself in fanfiction and music. Somehow I chose not to be that kind of an addict anymore. I have absolutely no idea when and how.

I read through the first version of my book and really, it's more of a script. Bones and skin and no flesh whatsoever. A good script, though. Needs one added death and less psychobabble, but I think I am getting the latter out of my system via rpg anyway.

I got the students loan from the state. A part of it got lost on the way to my second bank account where it now lays in hiding until I may need it. I hope I won't. I want to go to Japan on a stipend. We'll see. I am going to work pretty hard at getting that.

I turned in my last two term papers this summer break and like every other time I'm not satisfied with my own effort. Could have should have done more would have if I'd just had more time - always the same stupid crap. I'll propably get good to very good grades anyway.

Went home for a long weekend to bond with my sister, to watch my smitten dad, to meet old ghosts.
Henni and I went out one night, a premature Happy 15 celebration. Drank anti-alcoholic cocktails and taught her pub billard. She won the third game and looked smashing the whole evening. Miss her harder than ever, since.
Didn't get to see much of Dad, who's building a new relationship. His new love looks like Mom in her best days and was unbelievably nervous upon meeting his girls. She seems nice enough. Not that I care, he loves her, so of course we're going to spent christmas at my place all together, with her. I'd make a lot more effort to like her, but she's making it pretty easy anyway.
And I met Kathi again at long last. We were both very surprised that we actually hadn't seen each other in person for more than a year. Didn't change a thing between us, we've been talkin on the phone pretty regularly. We talked about a shared ghost, my old best friend Kim. Kim the shiny one. With the bronze skin and the tiny, golden hairs on her tight belly. With the big blue eyes and the bright, loud laugh. Tall, sporty, charming Kim.
The betrayer.
We talked about how we'd both come to terms with a lot of stuff this last year, Kathi and me, and I told her that I think I never left Kim any other chance, in these last years of school, than to turn around and bully me. I left her first, with my long black coat and the elaborately lifted eyebrow. Smiling condescendingly at the bullies who tried to make me feel bad that they weren't my friends. I shut myself off from the school gangs, feeling secure with my old friends all over the city. I was the observer, untouchable, unstoppably cool, uncaring. Best part is, I never knew about all this, inside I just felt bad about those people so I stopped really noticing them. And yes, I think I shut myself off from *everyone at that school*, even Kim, who'd changed schools with me, feeling secure with her best friend at her side. She must have been so confused and alone and yes, betrayed.
While talking to Kathi I somehow understood all that, and then I said: Poor Kim. And Kathi laughed, freely, and said: Childhood antics. Not that important to anyone anymore, I mean, it's been what, ten years?
Ten. Years.
So she proposed to organize a class reunion, or more like a clique reunion. I felt instantly very happy about that, I missed some of my old friends very fiercely, and I think it will be nice to see what became of them. And then there was the thought: Oh my god. I am happy about a class reunion. Is that what accomplishment feels like?

Fruits Basket has ended and I am happy with the ending. Strangers in Paradise is done, and I am heartbrokenly happy with this, too. I watched Prison Break and it was, well, like a long, long fanish wank. Mrraaarr. Since we had to move the couch into the big kitchen we've been hanging out there a lot more. Watching The Tudors, which is a sexy, beautiful series indeed, and old episodes of Friends, which I've never watched regularly. I fear I developed an identification with Monica and a crush on Chandler.

I'm so, so, so afraid of the newspaper reading course by Watabe-sense on Fridays. Last week I couldn't go because of the burst water pipe. Tomorrow... I have to. I have to. Never stop doing something just because you're afraid. Fear Is The Mindkiller.
...
I'll mail her to ask if I may still join and what we should prepare for next friday. Tomorrow evening.
Then there's an open lecture on Thursdays which I'll hopefully be attending regularly after this week (as I've said, backache today). Maybe I'll go to the lectures on Monday, but EVERYthing else on my timetable is hereby striked through. Useless. Forget the one I posted a while ago.

So here I sit, currently not jogging, not cramming Kanji into my brain, neither working on the novel nor on finding old, lost friends for a reunion. My back still hurts. Yeeees, well, I am constantly looking for new appartement adds, but that's because I love looking at them. I'm two months early still.
Maybe all that is alright, though. I procrastinated making detailed plans for the stipend application, for the graduation paper and for refreshing my Japanese more than one week now and only today went at it. Did I mention I went to the hairdresser last week? No term papers for me anymore, no more "Scheine", no more fanfiction frenzies, no more Kim competitions, astonishingly. Yes, maybe I needed a bit of time to digest all that. It may have been the subtlest of them all, yet, but it still was a major change. To a new me. Yes, yes, maybe an accomplishment. I definitely feel on edge again. Afraid of even looking forward, not to talk about taking the next step.
See, life says to me, this is you, three steps nearer to who you want to be. Step over the threshold.

P.S.: Nearly forgot: The permanent braces are gone, too! Nice model smile I got going, now. Can't take a picture, though, because I lent my camera to myriverbed.

I lack enthusiasm. I don't think one can ever have too much of it. Enthusiasm is contagious, makes everything easier, more beautiful and fills it with meaning. I need to change again. The tides flew that way for a long time, now, but I had to search for the direction, really hard, too. Paris helped to answer some last questions. Interestingly, my flist did so, too. 'I lost my way', it says. 'I forgot who I am, because I listened too much to the overly negative opinions of others.' And of course 'I need to do what I love most.'
I had a long entry, last week, when LJ didn't let me post. I even saved it, but I can't post it now, when it's so obsolete, now.
There are different ways to live this life, and two of those always appealed most to me: The safest and the wildest way. I can't seem to find a decent compromise. I want to earn money, preferably much, preferably now. Do the decent, respectable thing. And I want to do what I love most, preferably all the time, preferably right now, and fuck their petty opinions.

I missed the third floor of Shakespeare & Co. How *stupid* can you get? I should have staid just a few moments longer. I should go back there, write there, read there, live there for a month or two. I guess it's a moot point, because it's probably even more important to live like that *whereever* I am. Carry the bookshop in your heart.


It's not really about money. It's not about time or easy opportunities. It's not even about the people surrounding me, helping me, hindering me. It's just about love and enthusiasm, which are kind of the same anyway.
I once loved books. Any books. Even boring ones.
I loved learning and running free and swimming for two hours straight, letting my thoughts drift away.
I loved playing, talking, laughing with guys, without even really thinking about that they were guys, not girls.
I loved myself, unconditionally. And I loved earth and humanity and everything in between. I was a child, once. And I don't think everything I learned and changed since then was for the better.
They are not out to get me, not even to laugh at me, and if someone does anyway, they are to be pitied and instantly forgotten.
There is no perfectly right way to behave, ever. You can make any honest mistake up with an true smile, an apology and a good explanation.
Nobody should expect the worst from other humans. Even if they do steal your thousand francs, like they did with George.
I do believe in this. I do, I do.
And maybe I'm surrounded by the wrong things again. (and no, of course it's generally not about things, but some things grow to be a part of ones self, or self image, which can be interchangeable) Like always, I'll start at the outmost layer: my rooms. Books I never read and never intend to read. Hateful letters by deceased relatives (bodily or just in their hearts, doesn't matter). Souvernirs of old humiliations and twisted friendships (as if one ever forgets those).
I don't think I'll change the middle layer again, at least not the hair colour or the glasses, I love those. Maybe a haircut. Definitely more weight loss, that's inevitable. Probably other clothes, resulting by the former.
And two new goals for the innermost layer:
Hard work and enthusiasm.

And yes I said, yes I will, yes.

I think I am a metropolitan at heart. Somehow that seems to be work for me, too. Maybe it's just this city, which really seems to be so small and such a gathering of villages. But there are shops that do have soul. There are street corners with flair, happenings and culture all around. I'm just not going there.
My dog-sitting precedessor said: Nothing prevents stagnation of character like a big city. Especially artists need this rubbing against other peoples ideas, cultures, lifes. It's out there. I should start meeting it.

One fourth of all books in my racks are unread. And I'll probably never read them. Half of them are read and will never be read by me again, I just liked them enough to keep them. And only another fourth of them are read and reread and will be reread until they fall apart.
I'm not settled yet. There will be at least three more relocations of my home in my future. Why exactly do I hoard books? Yes, I always liked the idea, and yes, someday I will have a room just for reading, my own private library. But I don't think I want to carry around the ones I don't love with all my heart three times more.
If I want to read something new I'm going to the library anyway. Yes, Poe looks good on the rack but I don't even really like him. XD

I need to stop looking at my own bellybutton, and I desperately need to concentrate on not only letting others live like they want to, but also to stop thinking about it. Tolerate everything but intolerance. And if you happen to stumble about intolerance online... just. Fucking. Ignore it. It's not worth it. That should make it a mite easier to avoid hating.

Oh, btw, when I write in my LJ about the condition of my mind and soul, I do it to express myself, I do it, well... to write. About me and for myself. So before you feel pointed at or sad about my harsh feelings, know that I write with undertones. For example I say: "I'm in love with ideas and ideals." And I for myself know that this could be said about fascists, religious fundamentalists and hard-liners of all kinds, whom I despise. So for me there's a hushed kind of absolute horror in this sentence. I don't mean to adulate myself and I don't mean to hurt anybody. Hmm. maybe I should put this in my info.

You are given a life and a world and a body to explore it with and you can do everything you want to with this. Everything. I will not let that make me afraid, I will not let that cow me into inactivity. Inventing yourself is a form of art, maybe it's art itself, it's purest form. So of course it's scary and laborious. You are always tempted to cheat. Take the easy way out, just copy someone elses idea or settle for that which isn't what you could reach but that which can be reached with minimum effort.

There's an old thought about how real life and the internet are adversarys. Old insofar as it was said about television too. When phones came into every household, scared idiots warned that people would stop to meet to talk normally, or stop to talk to each other without phone altogether. I'm sometimes desoriented enough to confuse this untruth with one of the facts of my life: There is an antagonism between active life and passive life. TV and the net can be a big part of passive life if I let them. But to lead an active life is about a state of mind, not about which media you use for information. (Btw, I still think the shutdownday is a nice experiment, not life changing or anything, but maybe a good occasion for some things. Never thought it to be more.)

So, this is my new checklist so far:
active, tolerant, less assets, more reading, more writing (and less harsh if it's LJ), more courage and laid-back-ness (I know that's not an actual word. XD).
I saw a documentation about Central Park right now. There was the first glimpse of a new ideal me, somewhere between the painters, the freaks and the jazz.

I need a new LJ-Layout. I'll experiment for a while I think. Tokyo Skyline? William Morris wallpaper? Cologne city fox? Nomnomnot quite right yet...

Bono was singing and I had to think about time and lost friends. Bono always sang this song at the best of times. I don't even identify with the lyrics but still I shiver everytime his wonderful voice hums in my ears. Germany was racing along my window and I had the immediate feeling he sang just for me, had always been singing just for me. I felt the love he poured into the song and it grew to be too much, so I put him away and opened my book.
And there it stood, black on white, that Neil Gaiman had written this book just for me. Just for me. I had to grin and felt at home in the world.

The next day I was running through dusk and the city of my childhood, along the sea, where way out you could see black sails and big white ferries. I had to put the music away there, too, I had to listen to the seabirds, waves and my thoughts. I sat down in a puddle of light right at the line where the city ended and the sea began, my legs dangling over the frontier. Then I ran again, through the park which sits in the middle of my puberty. Crocuses took the weather for spring and greeted it, and I felt it again: Home is places we've grown and all of us sat down before.

I shopped adulthood with my sister who'll apparently grow to be unbelievably beautyful, secure and nice.
My dad's hair became half grey this year, and, again, I thought about death. I do that way too much, but I simply have to confront this fear. I have to grab it by the ears and look into its eyes or I'll be afraid forever. He'll die, before me if live is that fair, and that's okay. Grönemeyer sang for himself, for his own hurt but nonetheless for everybody willing to listen, too: 'It's okay, it hurts evenly.' You know, since the day I got my cat I'm counting the years left of his life backwards. 15 years left. 14. 13. 12. I thought about the time I had left in my life since I was what, 12? 13? And it's so bittersweet it hurts. We're going to die. This may be the best day of my life. It's never going to be exactly like today ever again. What we did today will never be not done. Gnarls Bakley sang: 'And I can die when I'm done.' But days before that someone died in Strangers in Paradise, and he woke somewhere else where a girl with very light eyes smiled and said 'Welcome home'. She told him he was dead and he said: 'But I didn't finish!' And she said: 'Nobody does.'

And Neil wrote about Douglas Adams, that he was a genious, but spent more time not writing than he did writing, which he thought was strange for someone who called himself a writer.
Yes, we'll all die, and way before we finish. At least I want to be able to call myself a writer and know that's not exaggerated.
It's so stupid but I actually forgot Anno 1602 at my sisters comp, and bless that, I lost way too much time in this game. Yes, I want to play for the rest of my life, but it shouldn't be the focus of my days, at least not this kind of game.

I met the family of my best friend and I looked at them and was really happy that I didn't have to put up with crap like that anymore. Family only defines me as much as I let it anymore. In Germany there's the phrase: I don't have to put on this shoe.
I met an old friend there, too, and even if we hadn't talked for ages until then, we clicked again like we'd only met days before.
Everyone and their mother told me I looked great, with these pounds lost and everything. And I just wanted to tell them just you wait, I'm not there yet.

And deep at night, while two lonely and beautyful men in Frankfurt really met for the first time, I had an epiphany so big that I'm deeply embarrased. I thought we were over that. But 'bisexual' never felt quite right, and 'gay' just wasn't true. I felt lonely, I felt bad, I felt like I did something wrong. I thought maybe I was a bad person to want everything, everyone, at the same time. But I'm not untrue. I'll never hurt you. 'I don't want your love, I just want your word', he sings, and I fight tears. I'm polyamorous.

While my old home went further and further away from me, Neil told me about how there are many sets of just 500 people in this world who are main characters, the rest are extras. The world is small, it really is. He told me about the personal song everybody has and nearly nobody ever gets to sing it. And he said another thing about writing: There are no rules. No rules at all. Tell if showing is inappropriate.
I closed the book and watched Germany race along, and then the train entered a tunnel and the lights went out. Nobody said anything for a few seconds in the total darkness you only find under mountains. Then a woman whispered: 'Okay, that's a *little* disturbing.'
I just pondered if maybe I should become afraid when the greyish light from the other side grew into a full sunny day. People shook themselves and went on with their lives.