No wifi: 12.6.2025

I woke up this morning and checked my phone. I turned airplane mode off for a couple minutes in order to see messages from friends. I had dreamt of somebody I know/knew whom I'd recently sent a letter to after nearly two years of minimal contact following a consistent two year friendship/penpalship and a brief fling (primarily over the telephone), then woke up to a message from him. He's moved halfway across the country, which I found out a few weeks after I sent the letter, and his mother included the letter to him in a care package she sent him, which was stolen from his Brooklyn apartment's stoop. He said he'll try to clairvoyantly respond to my letter. I was tempted to respond, telling him what I'd written. I am just going to leave it for now. I went back and forth so much, debating whether or not to send it in the first place. I felt a release when I sent it, then assumed I'd never hear anything back after I hadn't yet heard anything back, then was anxious all over again once I learned he'd moved and that the letter therefore probably hadn't made it to him yet. 

I've often thought I might be a little bit psychic. It's not an uncommon occurrence for me to dream about somebody and then get a call from them that day. I used to be much more spiritually inclined than I am now, but I do think maybe we all are connected to one another in some way and that causes us to know things just before their time or know when people are thinking about us. Do I think of you when you think of me? 

This lack of internet is turning me into a diarist. Or maybe that's the free time. My boyfriend is out of town for a friend's birthday weekend and I've got almost an hour before I need to leave for my sculpting class. I need to get dressed and pack a lunch. I am excited for the sculpting class, but I also think I'd rather sit here and enjoy this outpouring of thoughts while it lasts. It's been a while. This lack of wifi is turning me into a diarist. 

Last year, I did two little experiments. One time, I didn't listen to any music for two weeks (except music I had no control over, ie. buskers) and another time I slept without a pillow. Sleeping without a pillow was a total bust. Not listening to music was fine, aside from the fact that I often turn music on as a motivator to get out of bed on the days when I just don't feel like it. That part was a bit rough. 

If I'd really thought it through, it would've been obvious that the pillow experiment wouldn't lead to anything. There is no problem I can see with sleeping with a pillow. The music one can be traced back to my spotify wrapped statistics from a few years ago. It was either 2021 or 2022 and I listened to over 100,000 hours of music. I was constantly listening to music, trying to keep external stimuli constant, whether I was in my apartment, at the grocery store, at work. At that point in time, I was working from home. I didn't have all too many friends in the new city where I was living. I had been dumped in early 2021 by my first love. My spotify wrapped statistics showed in the following years that my music listening decreased. I do think it was intentional and remember talking with my older sibling about it. The no music thing would've been much more impactful at that point in time than it was at the time when I did it, but there's no going back to change things in this life. 

Life without wifi.

A little over a month ago, I cancelled my apartment's wifi. One of my roommates decided she didn't want to pay her portion anymore because she already pays 70€ per month for her unlimited phone plan, an exorbitant amount, but that's none of my business, and then another decided that she didn't want to, either, because she spends half of her time traveling, anyway. Her reasoning makes more sense to me, but I digress. My third roommate said that she didn't like the idea of jus the two of us sharing and paying for wifi that the other two are not allowed to use and would rather not have any at all than feel greedy for hoarding the wifi, and so I was left as the only one left who wanted wifi in the apartment. I don't particularly want to foot the 54€ per month bill (also too expensive, if we're being honest, but it was all sort of last minute and so I didn't compare prices and then, once we had it, life got in the way and I never got around to comparing prices), so I cancelled it altogether. 

The day before yesterday, I came home from a trip to an apartment sans wifi. I kind of can't believe that I have no wifi in my home in the year 2025 (almost 2026!). Yesterday, I thought I'd lost my key and, after half an hour of manically searching the entire apartment, I sent an email to my coworkers, telling them I'd be working from home until I could figure out a replacement key. This was my first full day of no wifi, and so I had to use a hotspot on my phone to remotely connect my laptop to my work computer. I have 27GB per month of cellular data. I'm not entirely sure how much 1GB of data is or how much I should picture 27GB as being, but I do get the sense that it's not enough to watch youtube videos on a regular basis or something like that. 

I primarily work in the office, only really working from home on days when there's no train to work because of strikes or when I'm visiting family or when I'm just feeling too unmotivated or sick to go into the office (but not sick enough to call in sick). My plan was just not to work from home anymore. Just my luck that I would lose my keys! I later found them in my shoe from the day before. Don't ask me how they got in there, I don't know. 

Tonight, I have decided that I will keep my phone on airplane mode most of the time when I'm hanging out at home. For a while now, I've been frustrated by how jumpy I am when it buzzes and by the ease of access other people have to me, so this feels like the perfect excuse to have my phone off more of the time. My laptop will, primarily, be used without internet as well. Maybe this means that I'll get into the habit of bringing my laptop with me to work in order to go to the library afterward to use the wifi there. Maybe this means that I'll become much more thoughtful about when, why, and for what I'm using the internet. 

There is something comforting and nostalgic about the idea of the internet being somewhere you go to a place to have access to. Although I don't remember a time before we had the internet at home, I am just old enough to remember having to go to the computer room (in our case, the basement and then the family room, or maybe the family room and then the basement) in order to access it. The internet was bound to a specific place, a room in the house, and to a thing, the big, gray, plastic machine called the computer. I think it was gray. Maybe it was white. I'm not entirely certain anymore. At some point, my mom got a laptop. Then, there was an iPod touch in the house. I'm fairly certain that was when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. Eventually, there was no stationary machine at all anymore, no room. No location of the internet. When I was in 8th grade, I got my first smartphone. That meant that the internet came with me, everywhere. And that is sort of where it stands today. Or rather, last week. I've always had wifi in my apartments, at school, at work. I've always had cellular data in all the places in between. 

All of that is to say that I am kind of excited to see what comes of this. How does it feel to be wifiless in the 21st century? Does this change anything about my relationship with myself, other people, etc.? Does it change how I interact with the world and with information?

A little update, for anybody out there who might be reading. Who knows, maybe somebody is. (Liza? Is that you?)

I am sitting on my bed, exhausted from the week I've just had. I think I'll go for a walk soon. I was at the Venice architecture biennale last weekend and then flew back to Berlin in the early morning on Monday and went directly to work. I had things after work every day this week, as I do most weeks. I really need to work on that. Every time I intentionally leave an evening open, somebody pops up and asks me to hang out and I end up telling myself I'll spend some time alone the next week. I never do. Today I am having a day (mostly) to myself and am mostly just thinking to myself "wow, I'm exhausted," but I also wanted to finally get some online stuff done. Nothing big and important, but for the longest time I've been meaning to set up an RSS reader, so I'm doing that now. Of course, I haven't kept a list or anything of the websites I like that have RSS feeds, so I'm on a bit of a hunt. Oh well. 

It's been ages since I really made a post about my life. Going back to the one from January, titled "I've behaved a bit oddly." I can inform you that T and I are still dating and that I am quite in love. Going back to the post two before that, titled "After a week of being all by my lonesome, I am being social again!" I can say that I am still friends with those people and feel as though I've sort of begun to find my niche in Berlin. On the one hand, I'd like to stay here for a very long time and really be integrated into a community. On the other hand, I don't actually intend to stay here for all too long and don't picture myself settling down in a big city in the long term. T is from east Germany and has said we can remain near Berlin without being in Berlin, but I'm not entirely sure I want that. Most of my family is in the west. Or in the US. Luckily, I've got all the time in the world to figure out what I want. Hopefully, it will find itself and things will fall into place. I feel as though this is already sort of happening here in Berlin. 

The Venice architecture biennale was extremely interesting and inspiring and for the first time in my life, I am actually considering grad school in more of a real and meaningful way. I feel a bit stuck in my job at the moment and would like to be doing something where I feel as though I'm at least trying to be a part of the solution to some problem. With my background, trying to fight climate change feels most natural. 

I'm taking a Japanese woodworking course! I'm thrilled about it! I've made my first object. 

I've also begun blogging on another blogspot blog as sort of a living portfolio/archive of leaves I find and flowers I press. It's called staring at the sun. 

I'd like to make a new portfolio website. I had one I made with squarespace, but I let my subscription lapse because I have a job and am not looking for a new one right now. Plus, if I were to, it would be something distinctly different from what I'm doing now and the portfolio that was on there was very tailored to the job I'm at now. I also have a portfolio pdf that I made in indesign, so it didn't serve any purpose other than to be a link to click from my linkedin, which I doubt anybody every clicked. I would like my portfolio site to have the feel of a personal site from the '90s or '00s, so I'd like to code it myself. But I'd also like it to feel polished and nice, so I'll need to learn to code better. The question of where to host it remains. I was, for a while, keeping up a site on neocities, but that ended up sort of just being a blog and so I migrated back to here. I do think there was a brief period in time when I was using both, which was a bit pointless. Of course, the neocities site had more traffic than this ever has. At this point, I think this is sort of just an archive for myself. 

Liza, are you out there? I miss you! I wish I had your email address, because I don't want to go back onto twitter to contact you through that. Do you even use twitter anymore? Does anybody I follow? I don't know. A lot has changed since I last logged on, I think. 

Is what people give me all they are willing to give me?

I am not very good at asking for more from people or at expressing my needs to people. I am learning to be better at it, but I do have this deeply held belief, I think, in spite of knowing better, that what I receive from people is all they are ever willing or able to give to me. I feel as though they will be unwilling to give me what I ask for, if I ask for more, and that I will be left with nothing in the end, somehow. I'm wondering if there's a way to train myself out of this, but I don't even know what I want from people! Often, all I want is some time alone, but I'm not even willing to give that to myself. I schedule too much in advance. Oh well. I think I'll go make some nighttime tuna salad now.

Sometimes I can’t listen to Fetch The Bolt Cutters because it’s too perfect

That’s sort of all there is to it. It’s a perfect album. If I want to listen to it but it’s too perfect in that moment I’ll listen to The Idler Wheel…

More YouTube Videos

 Been watching some animated videos as of late.

Movies that are on YouTube

 

The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

Donnie Darko (2001)

I've behaved a bit oddly.

Thought experiment: let's say that back in November/December I went on three (very fun) dates with somebody, Y, with whom I am ultimately not compatible. We did have a fun, flirtatious thing going on. Now let's say over the holidays we texted only a little and that I didn't respond but did have intentions to but then as more time went on, the less I realistically was going to get around to it and they never texted me again, either. Now let's say that, this week, I was on my way to my first date with T and it was at a cafe near Y's apartment and I thought to myself "oh wouldn't it be so funny if I ran into Y on my way to a first date?" and then didn't and then let's say that T and I went for a walk after we left the cafe and as we were walking along the canal we came up behind this couple and that when we were just barely behind them I heard one of the people speak and it was Y, who has a very distinct voice, and I went into a very mild state of fight or flight and told T "let's turn here" and we crossed over the street and as we did that Y turned and may or may not have seen me (actually maybe, I'm not just being coy in expressing it in this way) and now I still feel a little guilty and weird. 

In our last conversation, Y and I were talking about our dogs, both of whom are kind of old and since then my dog passed and I felt the urge to text them about it when it happened. But what good does that do? Also, isn't it a bit weird to text somebody about your dead dog after three dates? Oh well. It's not like I did it, anyway. 

I have a second date with T tomorrow. Well, now it's technically today now. It's a quarter past midnight. 

Sweet dreams!

New Year's Resolutions

I'll admit it... I'm a big resolution gal. I love them! I can't get enough of them! I think they're a fun thing to do! I never do them with the expectation that I'll be perfect, instead I plan things that might be a bit out of reach and that I'll be happy if I even only halfway achieve them. They're a start. A jumping off point. 

I've been having a bit of trouble figuring out what I'm going to choose to be this year's resolution(s). There's a page in my brain notebook with a brainstorm of things I could choose, but some of it reads off more as a to do list. I like resolutions that are specific and continuous, but I think this year might be a year for trying out a new format. 

In 2024 I, controversially, didn't have any resolutions. It felt like I didn't need them because I was already moving halfway around the world and I didn't want to add to the stress of that by creating resolutions before I even got settled here and figured out who I am in Berlin and what things I do here. Now that I have some idea of that, I can make resolutions for the coming year. 

On my brainstormed list are:

• taking art classes/making art
• horticulture learning
• (community) garden volunteering
• make some sort of a project? I don't know?
• getting out into nature
• cooking more/more creatively
• keep up art blog, post more so it's a living portfolio
• woodworking course
• bike repair
• end the year with €10k in savings
• produce some sort of body of work
• go to two full blues dancing festivals 
• consistently do something for my back (physical therapy, pilates, yoga)
• do a self-organized bikepacking trip
• get involved w/ a community garden! 
• make sauerkraut (+ pickle more stuff)
• rocky horror shadow cast?
• read more German books 

Some common themes here. Food, art, community garden, nature. Doing more of the things I love! 

I am going to try to take life a bit more slowly and not feel like I need to be doing everything all the time, filling my days to the brim with activity. I am going to try to be on social media less and reading and making art more. I am going to learn more about bikes so I can feel more independent. I am going to take courses that interest me! I've already begun with a puppet building workshop and am excited for what else I can find to do! I will try to post again when I decide what to make of this brainstormed list, but until then... see ya!

After a week of being all by my lonesome, I am being social again!

I've been going, going, going recently! I was exhausted all week and finally felt like I'd caught up on sleep by Friday. I didn't get together with any friends after work any of the days until Friday! It was a Charlotte week. It was nice. I came home from work every day, turned into a youtube video watching zombie, wrote ideas for potential performance art ideas in my notebook, and went to bed. I'd like to get to a point where I'm much more balanced than I am and can actually do things after work, but it takes so much more alone time to get past the decompressing time and into the creative, active time that I tend to just keep the social momentum going. I'm not sure that made sense how I expressed it, but I can go more into the way I operate another time. It doesn't feel important right now. 

On Friday, I met up with friends to go to a soccer, sorry, football game. For many years I thought I was decidedly Not Into Sports but, as it turns out, I just hadn't been to enough games in person. I don't have a desire to watch any sports on the tv but if there's a crowd of people in color coordinated outfits, slightly drunk, singing and chanting together, I'm basically guaranteed to have a good time. In recent years, I've realized I love sports games! Do I feel a desire to go to them frequently? No. Regularly? No. Sporadically, infrequently, when my friends want to? Yes!!! I had a blast. I ate my stadium food, I drank my stadium beer, I smoked my stadium cigarette. And then we went to a bar afterward to keep the fun energy going. A lovely night!

Yesterday, I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to get together with my friends or not because I was sort of feeling just going to a park to sit by myself and draw, but in the end I did get together with friends. And I'm glad I did! We went to this big protest/party (a common combination in Berlin, as it turns out) put on every year by all of Berlin's remaining squats. There were a bunch of squats that came about in the late '60s/early '70s and most of them have been torn down and turned into condos by now, but a few remain and are trying to hold their ground against developers. They protest all the time, as you'd imagine anarchist punks living in squats would, but this particular one is special. Every squat builds out a cart, some just shopping carts with things attached to them and some as elaborate as multiple rickety old bikes welded together with a proper cart on top that can hold five people, and they each get a certain number of balls of one color and then, during the march part of the protest, they're playing a capture the flag type game where they try to steal or barter for as many of the other squats' balls as possible. At the end, they count who got the most balls from the largest variety of squats. 

Also at the end there is a race, which is just people running and pushing the carts. They do not move on their own. It was such a blast! I got rammed into one of the carts at one point (the game part gets a little aggressive, but in a mosh pit sort of way where people sort of throw one another to the ground and then help one another back up) and now have a bruise on my arm and I'm thinking of it as a battle scar. Afterward, we went to one of the squats (which, of course, the city is currently trying to tear down to build condos) where there was a big fundraiser party with live music and food and drinks. We didn't stay too long, though, because we decided to go get dinner at a place where we could sit down and eat. It was one of our friends' first times eating Ethiopian food. 

Today I went to a garden store with two friends and then we dropped off one of them with her new plants and the other one and I bumbled around town for the rest of the day, drinking beer out in the sun, buying old photos at flea markets, seeing magicians and other street performers, and eating so much food. I got a light sunburn on my shoulders. I am so full of tacos and beer right now! 

I have a date on Tuesday. We shall see how it goes. I deleted instagram and twitter from my phone and have been almost entirely off of them both for the past week, but I downloaded bumble (I'm on bumble bff even though I don't actively need more new friends) and have been on hinge more, so I feel like I've just replaced one phone addiction app with another. Maybe I should delete those as well. I'll decide later. 

The mother of one of my best friends passed the other day and I am grappling with the reality of living on another continent than where most of the people I love live. If I were in the US right now, I would be flying out to help them with the aftermath of her death, but instead I am here, day drinking and seeing magicians and going to parties while it hangs over me that there's nothing I can do to support them other than remind them that I'm awake when all our other friends are asleep so they can call me in the middle of the night when they need somebody to talk to. And call and check in on them. But really, the best way I know of supporting people is to feed them and I cannot feed them right now. As adulthood goes on, I know that there will only be more of these major life events (tragedies and joyous events) that I will not be present for if I continue to live far away from everybody I've ever known. Is this just what my life will be like now? Will I always feel like I'm not able to be there for the people I love when they need it most because I am just too physically far? I have always valued having a strong sense of community and such a large part of community, for me, is being there through the good, the bad, the mundane, the tragic, all of it. And how can I do that when I am not there at all? This definitely will play a role in the future in how I make my decisions about where I am living and how I want my life to go. I am trying my best to figure out how to navigate the current situation and I think I will be better prepared the next time something big happens, but I still will always be learning. If you have any insights to share, please do. 

Hmmmm life can be funny, can't it?

Today, a letter I wrote to the ex girlfriend of a former flame of mine was returned to me, undeliverable. There's something sort of poetic about that, isn't there?

I recently had a phone call with a former Big Crush that was two or three hours long. Similar vein. 

(The ex girlfriend of the former flame and I are sort of loosely online friends, I've sent postcards to her before... realized that without context it sounded a bit weird.)