As in not quite happy, but everything’s-going-well-satisfied.

Tada. That is all.

What’s more, I’ve been thinking a lot lately (I know, that really is news, eh.. not. But hold your horses:), and when I say think “a lot”, I mean a. LOT. I spend days at a time by myself, my thoughts go in every possible direction, and when so much happens in my mind it’s difficult for me to convey anything clearly via any means whatsoever, be it when talking personally, on the phone, on facebook chat (yes, it kind of is horrific), by texting, … all I can get across are fragments that prove themselves to be untrue only a couple of hours or minutes afterwards, when my spinning mind tells me otherwise.

That thing, there, with the yellow and brown stuff on it, is one of the big THINGS occupying me at the moment. The other is spring cleaning catching up on Art History practicing Mozart getting over a heartache what you’ll see in the next post.

(There is actually also another fail connected to above images, I’ll put that up soon… [post-March 21st, as that's when it happened] [I love using brackets])

Cheerio!

(Don’t know what made that word appear there. Wasn’t me.)

that finds its way into my hands to serve a certain purpose leaves them unscathed. The next stop for things that do not leave my hands “unscathed” is the trash. I am truly sorry for those things, and I always hiss a prayer for them under my breath to ensure that their existence is ended in peace even though they were so cruelly and suddenly ripped from their being… being the thing they once were…

No. I look at them, think FUNNYHAHAIMSOSTUPID?!, chuckle, cackle and giggle softly or not-so-softly or loudly to myself, take a picture (or a gazillion, it depends) and go on with life. Geez, how else are you supposed to deal with these things if you are so magnificently prone to kaput-ing (and losing – but that, dearest reader, is another story. a boring one. you have stuff, you lose stuff. see?) stuff as I am? See.

Random non-existent word alert because I can’t think of a title.

That said, I can’t really think of content for this post either, except: Uni, alone, scared, alone, no Internet at home, alone, need to post on blog, feel I’ve totally lost the blog flow again, alone, creeped out, need to go home, need to eat, need to post.

(WTF, I know.)

There. Also: Carneval in Cologne was as above and below photos depict.

(not much (carneval)) (more booze and other wacky things)

I wore two garbage bags and messed up my hair and put on make up that I thought made me look sorta dead. Then my mom told me this look would be perfect for recitals. Well, I’ve always felt dead after recitals, but I never necessarily wanted to actually look dead throughout the whole thing. If you get my drift.

Oh, update, the fails of today:
-opened the door to a chimney sweeper and his handsome apprentice with sopping hair and clothed in a towel.
-knocked over an opened beer bottle in the fridge
-what was an opened ber bottle doing in my fridge
-OPENED
-have you noticed that every item in the list contains the word “opened” so far? Including this one. Fascinating.
-let my milk boil over
-bought toxic-smelling tobacco
-declared the smell of tobacco for “toxic”
-stupid
-me

and have lots of fun in the sun with those paper bags on your heads.

(Quite fun, sticking two photos together that were taken in one day and have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Wild. Arrrr.)

I was never a loud person. FUCK YOU LENOVO THINKPAD FOR LETTING ME DOWN WHEN I MOST NEEDED YOU.

Where was I?

Sorry. Yes, I was never a loud person. Really. I am the quiet type. Quiet-er. Than most. Some. Sometimes quieter than I myself am other times. That makes sense.

(So I was writing about being quiet and shy and sometimes not so quiet and shy when my computer just froze and took everything I was doing – I was doing a lot, all at once, I am capable of these things, yesican – down with it into the depths of never ever again retrievable frozen-ness, down there where everything you had on your mind and was about to splurt out when WHOOPS your mom called or the milk boiled over or your parakeet drowned itself in the bath it had let just a few moments before, which is actually utterly impossible and unthinkable, at least for me, as I do not own a parakeet and don’t want one either and what silly parakeet bathes in bathtubs anyway and then you realize for the 753rd time that this is once again one of those lessons life forces upon you, reminding you that it is really an extremely foolish thing to do, writing all this genius shit right in your browser when you KNOW the Internet is extremely slow at the moment and actually your computer is extremely unreliable in general and you realize this and think well goddamn it, why don’t you just go fuck yourself, Lenovo ThinkPad I only have because my dad gave it to me in exchange for a blog I was supposed to design and set up for him which I still have yet to finish aka start.

Man. And I thought I might be able to write all that stuff down again, from memory. And then the above happens. and I think, well, that is going to be a bit more difficult than I thought.)

SO I was always pretty shy and unsure of myself, which are two characteristics that complement one another very nicely, if not perfectly. Therefore I was also quiet. Quiet as… me. Not quiet as a mouse, because that is a phrase typical for some people, but as I refuse to be typically something, that is not the description I am using. Things may be typically me – just not the other way around, thank you very much. (I can just hear my brother telling me off, “will you get off your high horse, you are so arrogant sometimes.” why yes. but other times I am quite the opposite, so please just stfu.)

Until the eighth grade, when a Russian teacher, above all people, annoyed me so much she coaxed the will-be-obnoxious-to-persons-of-authority-if-I-get-the-feeling-they-adore-me-so-much-they-just-keep-demanding-more-and-more-of-me-ok-but-enough-is-enough-alright-yes-see-I-can-tell-you-what-I-think-or-what-I-don’t-think-but-want-to-say-anyway-justbecauseitskindafun-LOUDSHYESTHER. YESICAN. HEARTHAT.

She loved me. I used her. I was a mean little teacher’s pet.

So ever since then the LOUD Esther emerged ever so QUIETLY and sneakily, sometimes in downright surges of madness, other times in small bursts of joyous passion or just-for-fun aggression.

Then came the time I switched over to playing the viola, having played the violin for about eighteen months back in Toronto and starting again BECAUSE I NEEEEEEEEDED TO when I was twelve and in Germany. So I was playing the viola. And with time, it became clear how perfect the instrument was for me. Or how perfect I was for the instrument. I was growing into all the stereotypes that come with viola players. Or had I always been like that? Perhaps.

Meaning yes. It’s what all this gibberish has to do with the photo above.

The problem is, the characteristics one associates (via means of viola jokes) with violists are like cushions you can fall back into when you feel like too much is expected of you. You can say: well, too bad, I’m a violist. Fuck it. I am slow. I am … slow. In my mind, as I am in my movements and everything else you’re slow in when your mind is slow. It is, in fact, something that is expected of you as a violist. Sad? No!

Yes, I sometimes mistake my left hand for my bow hand. Oh, whoops, that’s the side you’re supposed to hold the thing on?
Sorry I’m late, I missed three buses, I’ll be ready in just a second. Wait, hold on, let me sort my music. Oh, oops, it just fell fell down, sorry, just carry on without me, will you?

Excuse me, where did you say we were starting from again?

Oh, my C string just slid down two octaves. Hold on while I fix it. Hm, this is proving rather tricky, would you mind helping me? Thanks, just… hold this and I’ll… Thanks.

Umm, yeah, where’s 4th position again? I’ll just play in first, do you mind? And what the heck is that black dot in my music?

…

I AM SORRY. I AM A VIOLIST. VIOLISTS DO NOT HAVE A CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING. And they are slow, and they love it.

But they can be great musicians. If they think they know what they’re doing. If they’ve accepted the fact that, yes, I am slow and awkward and not the brightest bulb around. What makes awesome violists awesome is the way they feel. They feel what the music is trying to say, and they can convey what they feel the music is trying to say.

Which can mean that they’re conveying something the music is not saying at all, not in the least bit. But that’s just my mind concluding something logical but irrelevant out of those statements.

Violists become great musicians not when they’re attempting to prove that not all violists are like …that (it’s what they usually fail the most miserably at, by the way), but when they embrace their slow, awkward being and simply let the world pass them by when they’re playing, because precisely in that moment the music is all that matters.

AND WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT MY DRAFT WAS SAVED AFTER ALL. Hallelujah, God save the Queen. I mean, Osama. BECAUSE: After he did his best to wreck the Internet he also managed to make my day.

Alright, so what did that all have to do with the chair? By the way, it’s not THE chair, it’s the photograph as visual material that spurred this whole essay thing on. It could have been a picture of a blank wall for all I know.

The thing is, I do have a certain very temperamental side that can creep out quite explosively when a situation arises and I’m comfortable with the people I let it out/in on. But my general, basic outward attitude is the slow, melancholy and tranquil state of mind that is so typical for violists. Seeing beauty everywhere and becoming absolutely giddy and high with ever-so-small-and mundane discoveries. Flat-out satisfied and blown away simultaneously. I’m a perfectionist through and through, but tiny imperfections can make me more than happy as well. How does that work? I don’t know, it’s one of the many mysteries of life, I guess.

So I look at a photo like the hallway above, and I see myself in everything it amounts up to. I can’t explain it, though there are certain criteria. For one: no people. Usually, it’s just one or more utterly mundane objects sitting around somewhere. The lighting plays a large role. It can’t be crammed shut with information, there needs to be some sort of focus, or none at all.

My main instinct though is: if I can imagine Messiaen’s eighth movement somewhere in the background, it’s a winner.

My prime time starts at nine thirty (-ish) p.m. Then I start working. The ideas start flowing. My head overflows. The ashtray fills itself up. No idea how it does that. Then it, too, overflows. As does the pot in which I am, once again, cooking my lentils. I forget about them and then my stove is ruined. Until I clean it up. Then I cook more lentils.

Sometimes my computer decides it doesn’t like me anymore (I’m not all too sure it ever liked me at all) and makes me re-do everything I’ve done until that point. Which isn’t that bad, because usually what happens after that is way better than what I started with in the first place – see post coming up after this one – the one in which I make the connection between my eighth grade Russian teacher and a chair in a university hallway. With an ever-so-small excursion into the theory and practice of being a violist.

Until then, observe my laundry beckoning.

As is the floor. Still a gi-normous ashtray and deposit for everything beer-related, it stands a miniscule chance of being cleaned and polished thoroughly until my next visitors set foot on it.

Though they probably won’t set foot on this particular spot anyway, but hey, it’s nice to know it exists, right?

And then we have the omnipresent beer bottles. Last seen here… and under my desk. Thirty-fold.

And on the window sill. The last remnants of the launch party on Friday that actually wasn’t much of a launch party – more of the-first-guests-came-at-ten-and-the-last-guests-came-at-two-and-everyone-left-at-four-thirty-except-one-person-with-whom-I-celebrated-Berlin-and-life-the-next-morning—–type.

And-overall-it-was-just-being-drunk-and-discussing-modern-art-and-eating-cigarette-filters-for-the-sheer-sake-of-it-because-someone-suggested-doing-it.

Oh, forget that last part. Or don’t. One does not need to do what others suggest that one do. But sometimes one does exactly that, for exactly that reason. And that’s the whole story.

Look at that sunlight. None of that where I am now.

Stay tuned for a whack-o rant tomorrow or the day after or maybe even the day after that. Depends on how much of a perfectionist I turn out to be concerning blog rants and for what length of time I manage to stay sober. (KARNEVAL)

Now excuse me while I make some coffee and attempt to pack and clean up and write up another post on the German blog. Good morning!

and yes, that makes sense to me.

Because I was absentmindedly staring at the part you usually stick the coffee in – if you’re not me and the floor and the stove isn’t strewn with ground coffee when you’ve managed to fill it to the top (not pressing it in there, mind you) – as I was letting it soak in the sink and, for a few seconds, wasn’t entirely sure if it was filled with water like the rest of the sink and everything in it was.

I splashed it with water and BAM – it splashed right back. There was water in there, and it had really been hard to tell. So I wondered if it was just me or if I could make it look water-free on camera as well. So there ya go! Full to the brim, that thing is.

As I was editing the photo, hoping to bring out all the blue and yellow hues, I was listening to a Cat Empire/Neil Young/Red House Painters/Random Kitschy Love Songs mix wherein I had no clue what was what except for the obvious, suddenly something came on that I’ve had on my mind for a while now. And strangely (oh my god well you don’t say, that IS really friggin strange especially if you’ve been thinking about it so much), I found it fitting:

olivier messiaen – quartet for the end of time – movement VIII – louange à l’immortalité de jésus

Open it up in a new tab and stare at the photo whilst contemplating your life and all the greater mysteries of the world.

.

Oh, please ignore the fact that the cup in the lower left-hand corner is extremely dirty. See, that’s why you do dishes. Generally speaking. Sort of. Why I do dishes, anyway.

Oh, and thank you Krista for filling my afternoon that should, as I thought yesterday and this morning and up to this point, have been spent cleaning up and doing the laundry (I DID do dishes, as you very well know) and taking out the garbage and used glass and maybe even vacuuming and/or mopping the kitchen floor… with laughter. and…stuff. I am not a lesbian. But she got me, which became clear to me when I changed my profile picture on Facebook to this. Goodlord, the Internet can make you happy.