untitled #25

She had no idea why she'd let him click on her YouTube watch history. "Jesus, why the hell are you even watching this shit," he said, scrolling past pastel-coloured, luminous video thumbnails with smiling girls. "How to organise your mornings. How to be more productive. What a waste of fucking time, man." They were sitting on her bed, her battlefield during the last few weeks, or was it months? No, probably years. She sighed theatrically, knowing full well he was right. She didn't see the point, either. If it helped someone to get their life together by meticulously protocolling the times they took out the trash, then by all means, they should steer the course. It could never, ever become her cup of tea, though - she could barely bring herself to write something on a life-saving post-it note every once in a while. "Yeah, I know. All those minutes I won't ever get back, nothing of this ever works for normal people, etc. I know. I suppose it's just some meditative way of judging people while trying to actually figure out your shit, at the same time. Something along those lines. Or just a waste of time. I don't know." He glanced at her with a half-smile and a furrowed brow, and proceeded to check out the other tabs in her opened browser: several videos opened and paused on YouTube - a video essay, two songs, a photoshop tutorial and a Sailor Moon episode - a fanfiction site, WhatsApp. Nothing spectacular.

"So that's it then?" he asked her, leaning back against the wall and letting his gaze wander across the accumulation of pens, post-its, paperclips, stacks of essays on formerly pristine white paper, crumpled notes and chocolate bar wrappers. Her gaze followed, regarding the mess through a haze of continuous sleep deprivation and dust particles dancing in the air. "Yeah," she said, "that's it." Both sat in silence for a while, pondering the meaning of that short sentence. Of course, nothing was "it". The ship was still in the middle of the ocean, and would continue to be for potentially many years to come. "I was waiting for euphoria to kick in," she said after a while, sounding far less bitter than she felt, "it didn't." In retrospect, she didn't understand how she could be so naive, thinking that overcoming one obstacle could impact the hollow feeling inside. "I'm in limbo." His gaze was still fixed on a point on the opposite wall. "How so?" She sighed, shuffling a little bit on the blanket - her legs had grown numb under her weight - and taking her time to compose a reply. "I feel like I'm standing beside myself? Like, whatever I do, it's not me who does it, but some projection that does her best to keep up the appearance. And I'm like, sorry for her but I also want her to stop. And I'm reaching out to link back to it, you know? Because I need to go on, and I need that to be me again. But I'm grasping at nothing. I don't look forward to absolutely anything. You know?" Her voice wavered a little. He was regarding the blanket now. "Do go on." She punched him weakly. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you." He chuckled at that. "Because I asked you, and you can’t wait to tell someone. And also, I was trying to figure out if it's wine I should fetch from the kitchen, or something significantly stronger. By the sound of it, I'll have to make a shop run for some Captain Morgan." She couldn't help grinning. "Yeah, probably."

Most people, she mused, would have been bewildered by their exchange. There was no sympathy, no words of comfort or encouragement. He just listened, and she just talked, and she was sure it didn’t affect him. He never talked about himself - in fact, they barely ever talked, he'd just dropped by to collect two books she had borrowed for her work - but she suspected that he felt the same, or at least out of place, as well, and there was a little space for quiet feelings of camaraderie in their alienation, and their shared, pronounced disdain for niceties, false sympathy, and false hopes. However, he was holding up way better than she was, which is why he the one asking, and she was the one explaining. She doubted that he could stop being enigmatic even before himself, and she didn’t know if there was someone he talked to when all these feelings threatened to spill out in the least convenient way possible. Actually, she didn’t know absolutely anything about him, except his name and that they shared some friends and were getting the same degree. Sometimes she wondered whether she didn't just make him up in her mind.

"It's just so exhausting to feel so detached from everything,” she said. “You know, the other day I actually tried listening to one of those premade Spotify playlists, like those for different moods or whatever, or for coffee shops. The stuff that most people just listen to, apparently." He raised his eyebrows in amusement. "And, did you enjoy it?" She met his eyes for a few seconds, and both snorted out in laughter. "It was a fucking nightmare. There were some songs on one of them, the sunny day one, I think, you could murder me with. Like, the absolute worst type of standard techno beat, and some woman squeaking her lines...Or even worse, these awful singer-songwriter dudes who just whisper their stupid lyrics to the exact same guitar chords all over, to the point where you wanna smack them across the head and tell them to just keep it together, you know?” He chuckled. “I sat through most of it. I thought it might shift my perspective, or something. I was just so tired from feeling so fucking disconnected all the time, you know." His silence was, again a welcome one. He knew the playlist hadn't helped, as did she, and both knew the remedy to whatever was haunting them was still far out of reach, if it existed at all. Out of sudden, he reached out for something tangled in the blanket, and when he pulled it out, she recognised her paperback copy of a Kafka compendium. "Giving old Franz a try?" he asked, flipping the pages. She smiled at the book. "It's really strange, I don't even see very much in a lot of what he writes, like, it doesn't always speak to me, or stir something in me the way some other authors do, but I have a really, really intense feeling that if we had known each other, we'd be the best of friends. I don't know, it's probably weird, and probably hella transgressive. I mean, poor Franz. He doesn't even get a say in this, and I declare him my pal." She was tearing up, she realised, so she stopped talking. He paused on some pages, reading a couple of stray paragraphs. Then he turned to her. "How long since you bleached your hair?"

The question came out of nowhere, but after a tiny pause, she just pointed to her roots that were doing their best to grow out in their usual dark colour as fast as possible. "As you can see, it's been a while." "Going from black to almost white, and no selfies on Instagram? Impressive," he commented, studying her hair. It dawned on her that he hadn't seen her with the new colour before, and she was wondering why he was only bringing it up now. She refrained from asking. "I'm over selfies at the moment. Remember? It's someone else, not me. I just can't. I really wish I could.” She did wish it. She wasn’t in the camp of people who judged others for posting pictures of themselves on social media, because there was something liberating in being at ease with your own shell. “It's so stupid. I just wish I could enjoy something, express something, just being me. God, that sounds awful. But I can't. Like I can't move, metaphorically. I don't know." She broke off. There were no words in her brain to say what she had wanted to. He watched her from the side, and she felt herself shrinking into the pillow her back was leaning again. Then he pulled out his phone, and her eyes widened. "No, oh my god, stop, I don't want people taking pictures, I didn’t mean that..." She buried her face in her hands, shutting her eyes, and ducked her head like a tortoise. There was no sound of a picture being taken, but she reckoned it was just because everyone had their phones on silent all the time. She stayed in her frankly quite embarrassing position through the noises of him sliding off the bed, tucking his two books into his backpack and taking a few steps towards the door. The she took a peek through her fingers. "Are you done?" "Yeah," he replied. He sounded amused, but she wasn’t sure. He probably was. She’d never know. "See ya." Then he left.

She stretched out on the bed after the click of the lock on her flat’s door, and exhaled, staring at the ceiling. Her phone vibrated. He had tagged her in an Instagram story. Slowly, she unlocked her phone and opened the app. There it was, the picture he’d taken - unfocused, just the wall above her head, and about a third of her actual head, including her outgrowing roots and the tips of the fingers she was pressing to her face. The space above her head said: “franz wasnt home but i found his pal paul scavenging his fridge for pizza leftovers”. She couldn’t stop laughing until breathing became difficult and tears rolled down her cheeks. This was absurd, but it brought relief and she wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone why to save her life. She reacted with a laughing face. Soon, the little grey “Seen” popped up beneath it, but no typing followed. She hadn’t expected it anyway, though, and proceeded to google “franz kafka friend paul”.

the point(illism)

They had put quite some effort into claiming their sunny spots in one of the few gazebos overlooking the little lake in the middle of Quinnsbury Park. For an hour they had been lurking around it, waiting for an elderly couple to leave together with their slightly obese dachshund, to run inside and sprinkle as much of their belongings around the place as possible to avoid the invasion of exhausted park runners, pensioners and school classes on trips with their overly eager biology teachers. They did so giggling and breathless like two primary schoolers who just snuck out of class a heroic half an hour early. A group of middle aged nordic walkers graced them with long, disgruntled looks before moving on to find an empty gazebo, or at least a bench without someone already feeding pigeons on it.

His contribution to the artifical chaos was an old, brown leather bag, two enormous bottles of soda and a stack of library paperbacks that was rather impressive considering the fact that he'd carried them outside his bag, balancing a tower of old, stained paper beings around crowded park walkways. She had brought several large sheets of thick cardboard, acrylic paints, water, a set of brushes and a museum guide of a Monet exhibition that was almost a decade old. She leaned on the rail figuring out a good spot in the park landscape to turn into a painting, while he picked up one of the book, only to place it in his lap and let the fading autumn sunlight wash over his features with his eyes closed. She was enthusiastically skimming the guide.

"I really can't wait to get started, even though I have a premonition that I will fail spectacularly," she said, propping up a cardboard sheet against a pillar and laying out her colours and whatnots. His mouth twitched into something akin to a half-smile. "You're like a preschooler right now, all buzzing and eager, and in an hour you'll cry noisily about how it turned out completely different from what you expected." She ignored his teasing, knowing he'd probably turn out to be right - again - and started painting. "I gotta start some day, I mean I wanted to try impressionism for ages now, and I think that's one type of painting I could actually master. It's more mellow than, say, expressionism and it's oddly satisfying to keep dotting the paper. My goal is to forge van Gogh's sunflowers one day."

He chuckled. "Keep that criminal energy coming, it suits you." She threw him a dismissive, albeit still good-humoured look and started painting, but he didn't see it - his eyes were still closed, and he was so completely still in the sun that if the breeze didn't move his hair a little he'd resemble a wax figure. The book in his lap remained untouched for at least an hour, and she only looked up from her cardboard and the landscape every now and then as if checking whether he was still there. She wondered whether his back didn't hurt as he seemed to arch against a pillar of their shared gazebo in a rather unnatural fashion, and whether he was actually asleep, even though she didn't think he was. This was of enormous interest as she kept allowing herself to indulge in the contrast of jet black hair and porcelain skin he happened to display on himself, and she wanted to avoid him catching her staring at all costs.

The painting was turning out weird. She placed careful brushstrokes side by side trying to create texture, but if at all, the trees and the lake looked like an awkward, sloppy kind of pointillism, rather than the swirling dynamic of an early impressionist she was trying so desperately to go for. Her annoyance started to show on the cardboard, resulting in even more misplaced strokes, until she angrily put the brush aside and let out an exasperated little noise. "Well, I definitely see something happen there. The artist started their work conscientiously, carefully, until their temper got the better of them," she heard him say. "Not quite what the goal was, but true art nevertheless." The irony wasn't appreciated. "Oh, you're impossible! Seriously, sometimes I wish someone would punch you for your self-righteousness, and I hope to God it won't have to be me, with my tiny bicepses," she almost hissed. But he only smirked at that, because just as he took the freedom to be cruelly insensitive, he didn't mind people being insensitive to him. "I sense outright aggression! Don't restrain yourself, the cardboard is your playground!" he exclaimed theatrically, moving out of the way of leg aimed at kicking him in the shin. "You suck," she grumbled, turning away from him.

He watched  her back with a grin. "I'll buy you ice cream," he suggested amiably. There was no response. He took on more comfortable position to sit and watch her trying to save what could be saved. "You know," he said after half an hour of silence, "that's what people are," nodding at the painting. "What, passive aggressive failures?" she asked, still slightly peeved. "Nah," he replied, looking at the little dots and smears of colour, "impressionist paintings. You don't ever get what you see, if you start looking closer. It's just dots, and dots, and between the dots, there's nothing." They sat in grave silence for a minute, the only noise being the swoosh of the brush. "Aren't you the optimist," she said finally. He sighed. "Come on," said, running his hand through his hair and standing up. "Pack up your stuff. Let's have De Daumier-Smith have his blue period and give it a rest for today. I'll buy you ice cream." She crinkled her nose. "Who's De Daumier-Smith?" she asked. He didn't reply.

its late

She knew by the first bite of baked sweetcorn and the shiver she woke up with in the morning after sleeping with an open window. When clouds had quietly changed their shapes from cotton balls to feathers, and when the scent of the air at dusk had begun to tug at something in her chest - that's when she knew that summer was over, and even if it hadn't brought her particular cheer she would be missing, a mellow sadness crept into every inch of her as soon as the sky changed its promise of bright and harsh sunlight to that of sparse, apologetic and farewell-bidding rays. As she did some modifications to her wardrobe, getting out a few sweaters, she figured it wasn't so much the summer fun she'd be missing - she didn't harbour any romantisised notion of a Summer Dream as teen culture and western capitalism had established it firmly over the course of decades - but the distinct taste of passing time that suddenly became more palpable and alarming. However quietly this feeling dispersed, breathing became more difficult nevertheless and as ever so often, just sinking into the ground, crumbling after an unnoticed petrification, seemed so much more convenient and sweet that coming to terms with the fact that yes, time has passed again.

a letter to J. D. S.

Dear Mr. Salinger,

you probably wouldn't be particularly dying to read anything like the following, but since you made Holden love the idea of just talking to the author of an appreciated book, I will be bold and write anyway - it's not like you can do much to stop me or just shake your head in disapproval of such an irrational endeavour since this letter is either six years or a lifetime too late.

As embarrassing as this is, Mr. Salinger, the point of writing this escapes me since the recipient is eternally unavailable and the content of the letter in question is thoroughly chaotic, albeit as sincere as can be. After spending yet another several days with the Glass family instead of everything else I should be doing, I am harbouring a vague necessity to tell you something - what exactly, I do not know. Yet, I intend to keep typing until all the peculiar little thoughts I had whilst watching Buddy Glass's belletristic home movie return to me.

I am deeply impressed, Mr. Salinger. It may delight you to know that, in my excitement about your writing, I had decided immediately to dedicate my MA thesis to your protagonists as examples of American existentialism, but I withdrew from this plan in horror after researching secondary literature on your short stories and discovering that critics are oh so stupid. Why are they so stupid, Bessie? To have someone I have never met, driven by scholarly narcissism and normed education, ruin a thing that struck me like thunder in its honesty and accuracy? Nay, Mr. Salinger. No academic paper shall ever be written by me on the subject of the Glasses, since doing the opposite would result in estrangement of newly found - who, in fact? Soulmates? Best case scenario. Role models? Flawed ones, but yes.

It's very funny you should mention people thinking they're "a bunch of insufferably 'superior' little bastards" because even if you shove it in some critics' faces, that they are, in fact, not; some won't listen and bemoan literally this alleged insufferable superiority as the major flaw in character design. In the first decade of the 21st century, mind you, well over fifty years after you've proven them wrong through your story, if only they had read it with an open mind. At least that is my opinion. I am, however, perfectly aware that this opinion is dismissable for various reasons.

I just need to tell you, Mr. Salinger, that I found it refreshing as hell that someone dared to create characters whose troubles lie deeper than the average man's, and chose not to focus on those who modestly hold up a credible level of naivite and false compassion whilst still giving lessons, thus appeasing the common, nervous reader: no, my friend, relax: I am not above your level in any way. No, Mr. Salinger, you dared to create brilliance without a deus ex machina scent, you made Seymour and Buddy and Zooey, who are ideal and restless, nevertheless, and too aware of the snares of self-absorption and narcissism to display any of the two without self-reflexivity. Once upon a time - just hear me out - I made up someone not quite far from Zooey in his properties, for a story of mine, and a lecturer thought I should give him more to worry about - "how about some trouble with a woman?", he suggested. I couldn't comprehend how he could miss the point of this character not having such a problem at that particular point in fictional time, of not dealing with anything that could be easily resolved by me, the writer. I am, unlike you, probably just not as talented a wordsmith to convey someone like that unmistakably.

I am absolutely certain you would object to a comparison of Zooey and this character of mine, and you'd be right - so far, I am just admiring, not quite comprehending what fell into my hands with your stories. Ideally, I will, someday, but for now, let me just thank you, Mr. Salinger, for providing perspective, solace, hope and rest. For yet uncharted reasons, I felt quite at home in that East Seventies appartement, and reassured by the words of wisdom coming from a certain Zachary Michael Glass.

Sincerely,

me

stalkie talkie

I oughta get into drawing comics, it's mega fun even tho a load of work, too.
You know what's problematic? When you feel like you're expected to figure out what you can do best. I swear I don't know. I won't even try. I'm a bit scared. A tiny bit hopeful, too, but way more scared and insecure.

PS: I did stalk your girlfriend on Facebook and she really isn't pretty. Your loss tho, I guess.

crush mush

The good thing about developing a light crush and being conscious about it is that you can use it as a beautiful excuse for a slight loss of focus and sprinkles of daydreamy blank outs to brighten your day and the fact that you don't get lost in overwhelming emotions whilst still enjoying the benefits of paying attention to someone. You also have an excuse to indulge in the creation of kitschy playlists. The bad thing about knowing that said crush is very probably not paying the same attention to you in the slightest is that it can be perceived as frustrating at times, but thankfully just a little bit. This is entertainment, mind you. It always is.

deskology

A clean desk. Light wood, birch, presumably. Matte varnish, not a scratch. The only items are a bonsai tree in an dark green earthenware pot, a Mac, a notebook, a stack of clean post-it notes and a Montblanc pen that looks like you could easily swap it for a small car. A hand places a plain white cup with the remains of a formerly hot espresso on the immaculate surface of the desk - hand and desk both belong to Harrison. Harrison is man in his thirties, works on Wall Street, sports glasses and a 24/7 poker face. Sometime today he will have achieve an important career goal by arranging a deal between two rapidly growing companies in the sportswear sector.

A cluttered desk. Not the good sort of cluttered. Tissues, food crumbs and the occasional cigarette butt. A book about the mesozoic period. Broken pencils galore. Graph paper, a small plastic jar of glitter spilled over a burger that, for this obvious reason, has not been finished, and library books bound in cloth filthy from too many casually dirty, greasy fingers. Paper, paper, more paper. A small picture of Galileo Galilei in a seashell frame. Several dead bugs. This desk belongs to Rufus. Rufus is an archeology student with dark and very curly hair, and a loud laugh. He loves the subject but not the academic means. Today he will fail an exam for the third and last time.

A dark, heavy desk. Several tax office letters. Letters from someone called Gwendoline Rutgers. Neat stacks of notepads, a little china vase with pens, a yawning cat on a burgundy leather desk pad. A tiny bit of dust and last weeks' Financial Times. A hardcover copy of a Sherlock Holmes collection, and three zoo tickets. This desk belongs to Arthur. Arthur is a retired stock broker, a serious man who replaced taking care of national finances with managing the desperately unstable financial situation of his daughter and her husband, two entrepreneurs, which oscillates from 'okay' to 'absolute catastrophe'.

And then there's my desk. It's plain and black with pseudo victorian legs, slightly scratched and fairly empty - objects with decorative purposes have failed to stand their ground with my cat as their opponent, who throws around everything he can reach when he feels like waking me up at night. A clay pot that used to contain some fancy mustard and now holds pens, several tin boxes that carried chocolates and biscuits now filled with pencils, brushes, nibs, inks and colour tubes. A notebook, a sketchbook. A box of Kleenex. That's it.

And then there's your desk. And you probably don't see adventure behind it, either.

Why? Because the first three desks were storytelling. They can be desks in movies, or desks in books. Books and movies have a beginning and an end. Everything they let you see is found within a framework of events, visuals, music and characters - characters you grow to love, characters you loathe, characters who are nothing like the people you know and those who are just exactly like them. You see Rufus' desk and you know that this desk is going to tell you something. Rufus is going to do something, to make decisions, to feel certain ways, to move ahead, to be part of a somewhat rounded story. 

You  and me? We don't know if our stories are rounded. For us, our desks are just desks. Plain desk, practical desks, aesthetisized desks, beautiful and alluring even, but always only just desks. They are not part of a narrative. We know that we have approximately one and a half hours to get to know Harrison and watch him develop, but we don't know if tomorrow something exciting will happen to us and change our lives, or how many bland hours, days and years we've got ahead before we will die in a freak accident, unexpectedly and unglamourously. Or if neither happens, and we will live normal, balanced lives, sometimes happy and sometimes not. Cinematography seeps into our consciousness. We see a skyline, streets lights, and we're excited for life, excited for what lies ahead and humbled by the presence of millions of fellow humans who all live their little stories. We feel like part of something big. Almost like we're in a movie. And why? Because we recognise the establishing shot - the first frame of innumerable scenes throughout the history of cinema: city lights, the eternal promise of the 20th century.

I sometimes catch myself feeling a bit sad about the fact that my own experience of life will never reach movie life level, simply because I am no work of fiction and therefore subject to a boring kind of chaos. It seems like life has long ago started imitating art. But plenty of these people in movies are just living the lives of normal people. Only the fact that we watch them on a screen makes their walk to school, their job interview, their neighbourhood, their desks seem special, different from me and what I am surrounded by. Rufus could be any archaeology student at my university. Harrison could be absolutely any accountant. Shouldn't I take it from there and decide that, yes, life is, in fact, just like a movie? And my life is, too?

[check this out, it's just in the spirit of what I'm talking about: click.]

haze IV

He peeked into the room, to see her tucked up in several blankets on the bed, scrolling down some site on her laptop. The blinds were closed, but only just enough to let a number of hazy dots of sunlight, obstructed by the moving branches of a tree outside her window, dance around the room, and, when the wind would stop blowing, hang on walls motionlessly like drops of some lurid liquid. Everything seemed pretty serene. "No need to stick to the door frame, come in," she said, still looking at the screen. He didn't move. "How very formal. For your information, I find this posture rather comfortable, and the view from here is almost pre-raphaelite." He knew she was probably smiling, even though he couldn't see her face. Sensing that the wind had somewhat changed, he parted ways with the frame, waltzed over to the bed and sat down on the side, hands in pockets. She glanced over to him briefly and resumed swiping the touchpad upwards.

"You're destroying the elaborate composition of folds and drapes right now. They were molded after that Laokoon group cloth, if you care to notice." A slight smirk rushed across his face. "I said pre-raphaelite, not a century before Christ," he replied. "Well, the pre-raphaelites were inspired by a whole bunch of renaissance people, and the renaissance people were inspired by the Romans and the Greeks. You lose." "Fine, "he said, smiling faintly and stroking a pillow with a fuzzy cover. "I lose." They sat in silence for a while, she- typing up a few replies to someone, he- watching her fingers with their formerly bitten nails and dry skin gently, but quickly tap the keyboard. "Do I sense a change of mind?" he asked finally, looking up, and she looked up, too, noticing that his face and neck were dotted with the bright spots the blinds had created all over the room, and where the sunlight hit his black hair, the reflections were  a surprising dark red, instead of blueish grey, as she'd expected. "What do you mean?" she asked as innocently as possible, knowing the very moment she opened her mouth that she only asked because that was just what you did, when a conversation was inbound you were not sure you were ready to have, and that he knew, either.

He studied her, waiting for a reply. "Well, I have recently come to the conclusion that it doesn't make a lot of sense - being stuck," she finally said, exhaling and curling her lip like a child who had lost a staring contest, and then turned back to her laptop. He looked amused. "Elaborate, please?" She shrugged. "There's very little to elaborate on,“ she said, typing again, „I guess my suppressed pragmatic side showed itself for once. If you don't think you can die just yet, your life will suck more if you wallow in how it sucks. So I decided to start doing things. That's about it." His smile grew a bit bigger. "You didn't know that before?" She turned to him, with an expression he could not quite determine - it seemed delighted and bitter at the same time, rushing across her face like late afternoon sun across a tile roof of some small suburban house some place far away. "You really believe that's how it works?" she asked. "No."She stretched her arms and shoulders out from under her blanket and sighed. "No matter how you twist and turn it, there will always be moments when I'll feel miserable, when I'll be trying really hard and still failing, when things won't seem worth it but I will still be here. Dwelling on the bullshit is just painfully unproductive. I don't think I could stand it anymore, that's it."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Can we drop this patronising expression, please, will ya?" He did not answer, but she felt like those few seconds of his gaze she met told her a million stories and jokes, the history of the world in the speed of light, before he turned his head and looked around the room. The light spots and tiny particles in the air seemed to set the entire room in motion. "Look at all this dust. Do you never dust in here?" he said with the same knowing look on his face. She mustered him. "Why do you always make me feel like you know something I don't? Like your mind's preoccupied with greater matters of the universe, while me and the other mortals just try to get by on planet Earth?" He turned back to her and suddenly, she was plain vertigo, the flares in the room spinning quicker and the room blurring and growing luminous like a forest glade from John Everett Millais' most desperate dreams . "I'm just visiting," he either said, or thought, or maybe she was just imagining because after that everything turned a mellow, scintillating green, and then black.

a story

He was watching her intently. She was strolling around the room and absently flicking off the ash from her seventh Gauloises every now and then, which came down in big flakes right on the worn persian carpet. "Maisie Gallagher. I can't believe this." "What is it that you can't believe?" She looked at him in bewilderment, not noticing that quite evidently, to him, whatever Maisie Gallagher may or may not have done was clear as glass. He might not approve but he sort of understood her motives. "George! I can't believe George is still a thing! I cannot. How can she stick with him like that? He's always been a moron, but that's like, a matter of taste, I reckon? Or ignorance? Whatever it is, now the whole world is aware of him being a complete douche, too, so why would she- oh, Christ's sake! I can't believe this!" She stopped for a second, another portion of ash tumbled sadly to the ground. The cigarette seemed aware that it wasn't being smoked and the realisation of the utter futility of its existence must've been hard for the poor thing to bear as it died out slowly and inevitably. 

"Not that I cared too much, mind you," she resumed, "I'm so over trying to tell her, and everybody else actually, how they're wasting themselves on bullshit. Because they always know better, don't they, the little sweethearts." He chuckled. She furrowed her brow. "Why'd you laugh? What you laughing at?" He sighed. "Nothing. It's just funny how worked up you get about this." "Oh God." She stood with her eyes closed for a moment, to open them like drawing the curtain in a theatre, like she always did, as if it was the overture to a sermon she was about to deliver, as he'd witnessed often enough. "I don't get worked up- it enrages me. Mostly because I am usually the one she comes running to with a backpack full of tears, when something happens," she said dryly. There was a silence and he thought she was being unexpectedly brief. "Well, did you tell Maisie?", he asked. "Tell her what?" "What you think." "The hell I did! I have tried a hundred times before. She says I don't understand," she added theatrically and shook her head in complete and utter disapproval. He felt a bit bad for poor Maisie Gallagher who had probably tried to explain herself using terms such as 'love', or 'feelings', and cried whilst saying things like 'for the sake of what we had', or 'it's something special'. 

He tried to catch her eyes for a minute or so, but she was staring out the window. "You wouldn't be taking any hits, would you." She gave him a pretty bewildered glance, as though his remark had insulted her by just allowing the possibility that she might. "No," she answered in a cocky voice. He sighed and she finally sat down on the armrest of a sofa and took a drag from what was left of her cigarette. "Well, tell me- would you?" He was now slowly stepping around the carpet in patterns. 

A record player was spinning quietly. The music was pretty mesmerising, swallowing the listener: layers on layers of seemingly carelessly arranged guitars and synthesisers, modified by just about every pedal in the world, and the sound of an omnipresent pad holding all threads together. He walked over and picked up the sleeve of the record. "This is good, isn't it," he said. "Oh yes, it is. I swear I've had it playing for like two weeks on loop. So good. Really something to get lost in." She sat with her arms crossed, watching the disc turn. "I think my brain just pauses when I listen to those songs." 

He adjusted the collar of his shirt as though it was hindering his breath, put the sleeve back and sat down next to her. "Can I ask you something?" She glanced at him briefly, tossed her cigarette butt into a nearby ashtray on the floor and lit another. "Sure. Go ahead." "You're not really into love, are you. And still you love those songs so much. That's literally all they're about, love. How come?" She gave off a little laugh, he sat still for a moment, wondering if that had been a smart move. "I mean, I'm just asking because I know that you despise Maisie's decisions about Georg first and foremost because she's in love, and that's her only reason to not give his butt a massive kick out the door, even though she should," he resumed. "I've heard you talk about it - remember, the other night at Greta's, when Georg and Van threw up all over the kitchen? And Mrs. Wazkovsky from downstairs threatened us with a frying pan because it was late and we just wouldn't be quiet? You literally gave a speech about how you'd never surrender your dreams and ideals to drives and hormones that people disguise as this crazy, mysterious, almighty thing; that you would never let it get to you this much - all that." 

He broke off, leaving space for a silence that was not as much awkward as it seemed to be picking up speed; that is, to him it did- she was merely sitting on the armrest, smiling to herself and carefully arranging an answer and the piles of grey flakes and powder in the ashtray that she picked up from the floor. "Well, first of all, they're also about breakups and moving on, and changing, and all that stuff. Primarily so, actually. Not to mention that I hugely enjoy the fantastic melodic composition. But you know what," she said, "incidentally, I've asked myself the same question as late as yesterday. And I'm not sure if the answer I came up with is satisfying to me, or will be to you. And if it's an answer at all, and not just a poor excuse." She finished composing a perfect circle out of the ash with her pinkie, sat down next to him and placed the tray back on the carpet between her feet. He watched her. "So? What's the faux answer?" 

She looked up from the floor and caught his eyes for a split second, then he looked away. "In brief, I probably parasitise other people's emotions." He snorted. The smirk on her face remained intact. "Is this it? This really is unsatisfactory. I mean-" He paused, apparently to compose himself for his next argument that brought about a slight bitterness to his face. "David..." She laughed out loud. "What about him," she said. "He's...You had a pretty massive crush on him, didn't you," he resumed. "Van said Dave tried to ask you out a million times and  what he got was a few very elaborate, very elusive replies that could only be read as It's Not Gonna Happen. I don't get it. You could have him, easily so. But you just wouldn't. Why soak up, and indulge in someone else's emotional experiences - or no, not even that- someone's artistic reproductions of their emotional experiences, rather than have your own?" He looked as though he wanted and didn't want to know at the same time. She blew smoke out of her mouth to inhale it back through her nostrils. 

"You ever read Jameson?" she asked. "Yes I have," he said, "but I-" "Look, it's very relevant, in case you were going to say it's just philosophy," she interrupted. "Hit me if I'm wrong but I think it was him who said that people these days prefer to experience a controlled de-control of emotions, and not to subject their entire being to affective experiences, all that kinda stuff." "That was about drugs, as far as I remember." "Yeah, but it's the same thing, essentially, isn't it? It's some funky chemicals going nuts in your blood and brain, no more. And I think I'm into that. I just borrow what went into the music for the few minutes I listen to it, then go ahead living my life. Don't we all? We want stories, we devour them in songs, in films, in books. That's not really a quirky thing to do, is it. Everyone does it." 

He shook his head. "It's not, it really isn't. And it's not that I can't follow you, all of this is actually quite apparent, really." She gave him an amused look. "But?" He sighed. "But I believe people mostly do it for a lack of worthwhile stories in their lives. You, on the other hand, seem to consciously avoid every chance of a story." Now she shook her head. "It's not like all stories revolve around being with someone. You know that. As of now, I believe I'm better off this way." "It's not like it's always already a commitment, you know." This came out of his mouth a lot more impatient or desperate than he intended. "I know," she said. "It's not about that." She turned to him, grinning impishly. "What are you trying to do, anyway, set me up with Dave, or what?" He, slightly flustered, met her gaze. "This is the last thing on earth I'd want to do, honestly." There was a pause that felt a bit like leaving a cake in the oven for a tad too long. "What the hell are you scared of?" he asked finally. She leaned back against the cushions. "Letters from the tax office, mostly," she said, "and polar bears being extinct." He couldn't help laughing.

Half an hour later she was swearing to herself about all the ashen traces on her beloved Persian carpet. At that same time, he was walking down Vanderbilt Avenue, wondering if there was a chance for him at all.

electric chances

Two artworks I basically forgot to feature on here. Apparently I have a thing for dusk. It's the second week of the new semester and I'm too sad/ill to go to classes.

april fool / probably chemistry

It's the 1st of April, 02:13 am.

Last night has been spent entirely by me sitting over books about spiritism and new media around 1900 to finish a paper I had to hand in today in the morning. By means of napping I have caught up on sleep a little during the day, not that it has helped to relieve the feeling of a heavy head though - I feel really weird and pretty churned up inside. When its dark and I am to agitated too sleep I decide to just hang around, chill and do whatever comes to my mind.

I find something to read. It's nothing special, an easy read, some plain entertainment to relax from the intensity of last nights research and processing of 100 year old esoterics. Kind of an action drama story, with a good dash of cool-bad-guy-meets-cool-good-gal. It's surprisingly intriguing and perfectly caters for my strange current mood, which my brain reminds me to be at least a little bit embarrassed about every couple of chapters. It's the kind of story where you read and have thoughts like "...oh come on, suggest to cooperate already...come on, do it, I know it will happen anyway...YES" and "...ahaha wonderful, don't let anyone else creep up on her, well done boy..!" and "...aaw man, he's so obviously in love and everybody tells you he is, can you just stop questioning it already...?" and "oh shit?! no, he can't be dead now, don't gimme that, just no!"" and obviously "YIS omg this is so cute omg omg omg YAY". You probably know what I mean, the feeling when you really really really want your favourite characters from a tv show to get together and they struggle endlessly but finally do- that kind of story.

So, here I am, biting my nails for these guys and basically jumping up and down on my bed thanks to a massively fucked up sleeping pattern, various things going wrong a lot these days and dangerous amounts of caffeine. At 04:03 I get a text from a friend who was gonna meet some boy at a party this evening for the first time. Apparently she's home already, the text says "well...we did kiss eventually". So I text  a big "yaaaay!" as a cheers to those guys now. Then I pause, because suddenly it feels strange to be alone, to have looked forward to nothing but the possibility of spending a night just reading something. I feel weird.

I ignore the fact that my alarm will ring at 08:00 and read until 06:23. I feel great and horrible at the same time, I reckon that my brain is sending me cryptic chemical messages that are supposed to mean something like "girl, get some fucking sleep, and how about you tidy up your life to the point when you know what you have to do, have a plan, and don't just live from mission impossible to mission impossible for a change?" but maybe it doesn't, or maybe it sucks at chemistry, because I just feel like dancing and crying and drowning and laughing at the same time. In the final paragraphs, the cool bad guy says something like "I'm very disturbed when some particular thing is out of my control...someone". I feel like that 'out of control' fear hypothesis is pretty acurate for me, too - with the slight difference that literally everything is out of my control and that is indeed well disturbing. I can't fall asleep for a while because my pulse is too loud and ticks against my pillow, and that enrages me. I can't decide if I'm content for the moment or completely miserable. It's April Fools' Day.

untitled #20 (acid)

I'm not sure of what it is, that feeling that pushes me towards lives I've never lived, distant places and illusionarily perfected people. I live those lives more vividly than any real experience could ever make me feel. The shabby canvas of existence must be filled with shapes, colours, words and scents from a phantasmagoric world that one Jean Baudrillard* would scornfully eye, and say "I told you, the images are all you have left." And I'd shrug the guilt away, scripting yet another conversation that never took place. I'd think of you, and you, and be a teenager again, and I'd be up to be a better me. A better me with you, or you. Excitement, touches of shoulders and cheeks, immersion. No time wasted, no shallowness, no despair- just bright lights, lit windows, ads and smog sunsets. Life. I do wonder if this is how schizophrenia begins, but I do wonder, too, if schizophrenia is not the most desirable state of mind. One mind becomes a lot. Then a lot become none. I was never great in mathematics. I wonder where you are, and you. And they. And me. Where am I? Am I on that canvas, or is that ashen face that stares ahead blankly me? Or am I already - We? Turns out, language does not tell a king from a madmen. Maybe the majesty of self-made schizophrenia is that what pushes me towards lives I've never lived, distant places and illusionarily perfected people. Monsieur Baudrillard, please tell me: If the Real is lost, how is it that I am not yet allowed to loose myself, too? Dissolve in palm trees, streets, clouds and arms that We painted, paint and will continue painting on bleak canvas.

*Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), postmodern french philosopher.

how to ..?

Here's my first completely digital effort on one Clementine Creevy, front gal at Cherry Glazerr. I don't know that much about her but I saw this photo and crushed on her a little. She's got that natural cool if you know what I mean- a sort of effortless all-falls-into-place-so-i-dont-really-care air (...bear. sorry). I guess you get that when you're a Los Angeles native, but maybe not. I hope to get there some day when I stop worrying, just be my careless self, feel chill about it and good about myself. Be where I want to be. Allow for some pastel colours to enter my life. Drag them in there, actually. Feel some clouds pass. Make music again. Grill some cheese. Breathe.

I'm already 23 tho.

this and that forever

Have this portrait of danish delight & ICEAGE singer Elias Ronnenfelt- that's him in the 'Forever' video which I cannot embed thanks to various wonderful privacy settings on every stupid video on the web, but you can watch the clip/hear the song here.

Important questions to ask this week:

Where have I been? 
Just about everywhere I usually am, can't get my shit together but I swear, starting from today I'll try to post more regularly. (Can you believe this, I used to have problems with posting way too often when I started this blog? Where did I take the time from??)

Are there any cool new bands around that are, like, proper cool and original and exciting, and whose music would actually increase your will to live, and not drown you in a depressive void?
That's an actual question from me to you guys, I'm all open for links and stuff because if I listen to whatever is on my phone for one more week I will just dissolve into nothingness #saveascallywag

Should I murder Elizabeth Peyton?
No! That does not change the fact that she is the epitomy of almost everything I despise about contemporary art industry. Gal gets a spot at some fancy NY art college (probably wealthy parents), makes connections, paints a shit ton of GENERIC, PSEUDO EXPRESSIONIST portraits of rockstars and IT girls etc., that look like try hard fakes of Brücke or Bauhaus artists, that ANY advanced class art student could have done BETTER, and that EXPRESS NOTHING, and she gets exhibitions and recognition for what? - for making a ton of bullshit, with people mentioning her distinctive style. I'm sorry if she's anyone's favourite artist but there is NOTHING distinctive about her style, and NOTHING expressive or interesting or new about her paintings, and I'm just raging whenever I see her name mentioned anywhere alongside with the words 'renowned artist'. If you don't know who that is, just google and then cry together with me and Leonardo Da Vinci in heaven about what we've come to.

Should I get back to exercising/sort out my wardrobe/maybe consider washing my hair more often than once a week?
Yes! That might be unexpected (or maybe not) but I'm really, really, really, really focused on looks/appearance. This doesn't mean that Regina George is my role model, but I have pretty draconic ideals and if I do not conform to them, that's bad. I don't, right now, and I do feel bad about myself. That's obviously not the way to go for everyone, but to look like you want to look is, for me, always the best way to also take control over everything else in your life. I feel like before creating something, I need to first create a me that I like. If that makes sense.

Come on, be honest... Is there hope for this blog?
Yes! I am now proud owner of a Wacom Intuos Pro graphic tablet and I have promised myself to dedicate at least half an hour every day to slowly re-do the graphics on here and on my society6 shop and my facebook page, too. Use it for new artworks, too. I also noticed that as I go along, I have several blogable thoughts and ideas every day, but usually I'm just too exhausted in the evenings, or people ask me to do things, or my cat Johnny (who joined my in the daily woes of life in August and I haven't shown you yet) claims all my attention for himself BUT I also promised myself to not let that take up ALL of my time and dedication since I have realised lately that in this life, there is nothing for me other that to work creatively and I need to brace myself and put my stuff out there, join projects, create, create, create. I will draw, I will write. If I'm lucky I'll get involved with music, as I used to. Other than that, there's nothing here for me. (draaahmaaahh. no, I'm serious. This blog will live.)

Anything else?
Nah, not really. Don't forget to say hi.

nintendo blood

another jc+voidz illustration. I'm freaking out a little here with digital editing but it's starting to get really fun !

libertines/ blogger sucks/an idea that I think is pretty cool/(lots of blaa)

hellooo brethrens,

blogger has been a massive let-down the other day- I actually got a few bits done for the new design (header & background) but this dumb platform won't let me upload the background? And the hmtl thingy doesn't have the codes I apparently need to find to insert it?? HALP if anyone's got a suggestion, I'm all up for it, tell me!

In related news, I've been busy as hell because uni started again and I've got a student job with the WDR's ARD now (1st TV channel, for the inhabitants of non-germany) which takes up a pretty damn decent amount of time (AND OF MY SLEEP ldfjskdj) which is why I have not yet posted about

SEEING THE LIBERTINES ! ! ! !!1111

Yes, I've seen Pete (again!) and Carl and John and Gary, and it was superb even tho I had to go alone because the one friend who wanted to see them too was broke and none of my other so- called friends were even remotely interested. So, I was in the second row and it was even more intense/painful/life-threatening than Babyshambles back in January, but I finally heard Music When the Lights Go Out live, the song that changed SO bloody much that I won't even get started on that. Here's two polaroids I managed to sneak of the Libs and Circa Waves who supported them before things got too dangerous for the camera:

& some more shots:

The next thing is that I was kind of thinking of making a zine (a real, non-digital, printed zine) that'd be like a booklet with drawings and some comments on my inspiration and how I see/experience the process of art/illustration making and stuff... do you think anyone would be interested in getting their hands on such a thing? Je ne sais pas. 

I should use my ideas catcher more often, there's a shit ton of stuff getting lost, I feel.

Hang in there, people xx

weirdible

I seem to always find myself announcing huge ass things and then nothing happens- I'm very unsure as to what to actually do. Right now, I'm torn between either turning this blog into something magazine-esque (which would make it less personal and random and I'm not sure if you guys would like, and it'd also mean all ye olde posts must go) or starting a magazine in style of Nylon or Rookie but with my personal touch of course (which would mean that I'd start a whole new page and then no one would go there which would make me sad... plus, I'm kinda fond of/used to this blog and I'd like to keep it - at least as an artifact for myself - as it is now. I'd be looking for fellow contributors tho which would make it kind of cool again..? maybe..? not sure). You'll be the 1st people to notice or to be notified tho, and if you have an opinion on this issue, PLEASE leave comments below. Also, if you wanna know more about the content I'm planning or if you know you'll wanna participate as soon as I've sorted things out, COMMENT below.

Other than that, things have been happening, some of which I'd hoped for and some of which I'd rather they hadn't- I'd like to stress tho that my #1 thought these days has been that it's the most stupid thing ever that people always ask whats wrong and if I wanna talk about it. I'd really prefer if people just knew about the mess I sometimes am and left this mess alone, and tried to cheer me up or distract me instead. Since people usually opt for being stupid, this job is done by the music I've been listening to lately. Here's the playlist:

I'd like to point out 'human sadness', this song turns you into the piece of crumpled paper that you are and then tries to smooth you down again and it's brutal/beautiful.

I made an illustration for 'half a person', too:

I actually also made one for 'rapt', and one for another song, and one for 'human sadness' is in progress but they are for the Cult Records zine and I will show you when they've decided whether they wanna include them or not (I hope they do).

whatever happened, you're/I'm not here

are you still paying attention because I kind of feel like you do but I'm not entirely sure, though I'm entirely sure that I'd really like you to

low flow

been spitting out pictures as if that'd change something

 

alexa & sth about me

I'm currently trying to be someone.