I am a bit worried.

I can’t remember anything.

That’s not true. I can remember waking up this morning. Hearing the dog downstairs. Feeling immediately panicked, then breathing, making my bed, putting clothes on.

I can remember everything I did after that. And I can remember everything I did last night. And… Can I remember what I did yesterday?

I can remember flashes. Me at the dinner table, photo in one hand, a stick of glue in the other. Eating curry. Playing video games. I had dried mango at one point.

If you were to ask me what I did yesterday though…

I’d draw a blank.

This worries me.

I tried remembering things from my childhood this morning. Inner child work or something. „Picture the child. What is it wearing? What is its favourite toy?“, asked the calm lady from the meditation app. I panicked. What is the child wearing? I couldn’t even see its face, let alone what it was wearing. Its face was like some kind of nightmarish blank mask from a horror movie. Staring at me without eyes. No emotions, no accusations, nothing. What was my favourite toy, as a child? I am a bit worried that I can’t remember. „What does the child want?“, continued the woman with her singsong voice, not letting myself think about toys for a minute.

WHAT DO YOU WANT

I felt myself scream at the child.

WHAT DO YOU WANT

I don’t think you’re supposed to scream at your inner child.

Maybe it wants a favourite toy?

Vom Fiepsen unterbrochen

Wusste ich doch, dass ich ein Blog habe. Seit 2005. Vielleicht sogar schon vorher, damals hüpfte man ja von Plattform zu Plattform, MySpace, Blogger. WordPress blieb aber. Ich habe in den letzten Tagen meine gesamte Bloggeschichte samt Kommentaren durchgelesen. Ich hab viel gelacht, war aber auch vieles sehr cringe. Schon seltsam, dieses Verlangen, alles zu verewigen. Ich bereue, dass ich keine Bilder meiner alten Blogdesigns habe – dabei verbrachte ich ganze Wochen dabei, auf Photoshop Pixels aneinanderzureihen, die richtigen Schriftarten zu installieren, Popups zu coden (why the fuck).

Das Menü oben lässt erkennen, wieviel Zeit vergangen ist. Der Twitterkasten ist für den Müll, die Linkliste sowieso. Must Reads könnte ich zu Goodreads verlinken und Must Sees zu Letterboxd. Waren da nicht mal die letzten instagram-Bilder zu sehen? Das wäre das einzige, dass noch aktuell ist.

Ich verzettele mich. Listen waren schon immer Teil meines Lebens und dieses Blogs. Vielleicht mache ich hiermit weiter, eine Liste mit Dingen, die irgendwie gerade gut tun in meinem Leben:

Ich habe den Prolog von Diluvian Winds jetzt dreimal durchgespielt und möchte gerne mehr spielen. Das Game ist noch nicht fertig, jetzt ich Geduld angesagt. Nicht so mein Forte.

Auch nicht das meines Hundes, der mich jetzt schon seit fünf Minuten anfiepst, weil sie hungrig ist (Sie ist immer hungrig). Ich kann nicht so gut schreiben, wenn ich angefiepst werde. Und nicht so gut arbeiten, nicht so gut denken. Alles ist irgendwie schwieriger, wird man angefiepst. Könnte ich Bände von erzählen, war in den letzten Monaten mein daily struggle. Da würde man sich doch denken, dass es besser wird, wenn man es länger durchmacht. Übung macht den Fieps. Aber es ist schwierig, den Faden wiederzufinden, wenn der Hund den Faden geklaut hat und damit spielen will. Vielleicht kommt das ja noch. Schliesslich ist sie ja noch kein Jahr bei uns. Vielleicht braucht das menschliche Gehirn einfach etwas länger um damit umzugehen, angefiepst zu werden, während es mit etwas anderem konzentriert ist. Deswegen habe ich den Prolog von Diluvian Winds dreimal durchgespielt: Es ist entspannend, und nach zweimal durchspielen weiss ich, was mich erwartet – egal, ob ich dabei angefiepst werde oder nicht.

Wo war ich? Ach ja, ich habe einen Blog.

Surprise List of Links

It has been a long time, yadda yadda, here’s a list of links I enjoyed while being confined at home (which is my day to day anyway, not much change here as a freelance translator) :

• Scratches my Sleep No More itch to the point of reopening the wound: The virtual tour of Punchdrunk’s decors for the immersive show The Drowned Man http://tour.templestudioslondon.com/
• Zach Weinersmith (SMBC) has put his books as free PDFs online and we love him: https://www.smbc-comics.com/covid/
• Luchie did the same with her wonderful „Hot Milk Digital“:
  https://gumroad.com/luchie
• The amazing shortfilm (34 minutes) Pear Cider and Cigarettes by Robert Valley
• Not tested yet (and not sure if I will find the time to do so, staying (more) at home makes for a surprisingly busy time in my case, with work and moving) but if you fancy an escape room at home, this looks very cool: https://www.millersvilleescaperoom.com/loxstone-manor
• The National Theatre have put both their 2011 productions of Frankenstein with Jonny Lee Miller and with Beneduck Climberbetch as the creature. I have only watched to former as of now, a matinee in my living room, and it is a very, very impressive production. I had read and liked the book a few years ago, and it made me think back of all the wonderful questions it asks about life and morality. If watching a two hour long play on a screen is your thing, the National Theatre is putting Antony and Cleopatra online in a few days. Edit: They actually replace the upload by a new play every… two weeks or so. More plays!
• Incredible Longread about Marcus Hutchins, who put a stop to the Wannacry virus a few years back.

I’m going to keep updating the list with more links the next days. In the meantime: Drink tea and enjoy that pile of books waiting for you since forever.

Inktober: Roasted

They’re laughing so hard at you that you feel your face turn bright red and hot. That’s it. That’s all I can think of. Not much to start a story on. Led Zeppelin is blaring through my boombox and October is long gone. So much has happened since October, it seems to be a lifetime ago. Baby baby baby, chants Robert Plant. Was he ever roasted? I wonder how funny he is, if he would take it with humour, to be publicly roasted. I feel like I know nothing about that character, only that he had glorious hair. And a thing for Middle-earth.

You feel your face turn bright red and hot. I often feel that way, even if no one is laughing at me. People are rarely laughing at me though, fortunately. It’s not something they do, the people I know. They are nice, in general. I can’t think of anyone being innately not-nice, now that I think of it. Mostly, if someone is, it’s because their day was shit.

The bit of tea still in my mug is cold, and there are leaves floating around in it. I love how tea leaves unfold and grow when they’re plunged in boiling water. Not so much when I accidentally taste them in my mouth when I take a sip of cold tea. Baby baby baby. It feels gross, chewing on that leaf. I’m going to make more tea and I read the Wikipedia page on Robert Plant.

Inktober: Tranquil

2nd of October 2018: Tranquil

„Oh yeah, like the darts.”

„The darts?”

„You know. They make you sleepy. Like some kind of poison. I often feel as if I’d been hit by such a dart. Suddenly sleepy. Like in the middle of the day, I feel my vision go blurry, I have a hard time focussing. I should be working or something, and instead I just lose all strength and go numb.”

„You mean tranquilliser darts?”

„Yes! It’s in their name. They make you tranquil, isn’t that what they do?”

„They’re used to stun and sedate animals, not calm you while you work.”

„Oh, like I’m so excited at work I’d need to be stunned.”

„That’s what you are saying!”

„No, I’m not. Sometimes I just feel like I’ve been hit by one of those guns. I find myself staring at the wall and my thoughts float away into the distance. All zombielike, you know?”

„I think you need more sleep.”