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.)

Maybe life is just about things that are silly and fun!!!

If your art is experimental, does that make me your test subject?

I went to a multi-disciplinary experimental performance art thing last night with two relatively new friends of mine (though I suppose all my friends here are relatively new). I've had good luck so far with things I've gone to here being pretty good and so I forgot that "experimental" can really just mean "trying things out" and that "trying things out" can really just mean "throwing shit at a wall and seeing if it sticks" and, well, that's what I felt it was last night. 

There were five pieces of this show last night. The first was a live music thing I couldn't tell you the genre of, then two films, then an ambient music and live painting thing, then an electronic-ish music thing with poetry readings, then an improvisational clarinet piece. 

The first piece made me think "just because you're weird and European doesn't make you Björk." Two people on stage, black and white video being projected onto them, kind of ambient-ish music and singing in a language I didn't recognize. Definitely not exciting enough to be Björk.

The second piece (first film) wasn't bad, but I was a bit confused and it felt kind of unoriginal. Two beautiful, toned, naked women being weird on a stage while they, dressed in a prudish manner, watched themselves on the stage. At one point they became aware of the cameraperson and went crazy. 

The third piece (second film) was also not bad but it wasn't something I would say took much artistic talent or thought. It was just a montage of old home videos of a family from the 1950s with ambient music playing in the background. We kept waiting for something to happen. 

The fourth piece was a woman making ambient music while also doing a live painting, which seems like it could be interesting but wasn't. Neither the music nor the painting was very good and because she was going so slowly, it wasn't even impressive that she was doing both at once. The painting was one of those fluid paintings where they just pour paint onto the canvas and let it dribble around. 

The fifth piece was recordings of poetry readings which the guy then performed music with/over. He seems like he'd be a talented musician in the regular way (his trumpet playing was very good, I could imagine him in a big band) but it felt like midlife crisis art. The sound didn't match the poems well and was dissonant, not in a particularly interesting way. 

The sixth piece was another sort of ambient music piece, an improvised clarinet piece the guy played and put through a looper and other things (I don't know much about these sorts of things, but he was using some sort of electronics). I thought this was actually the best piece of the night but, unfortunately, I was so tired by then and kind of ready to go home and sort of started dozing off during it. 

All this is not to say I didn't enjoy myself because I did. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. My friends and I critiqued each piece thoughtfully but, you know, critically. I'd more often like to sit with friends and pick things apart like we did last night. It was lovely! And it made me think a lot about what I think makes art "good" and "worthwhile" and I'll surely write about that at some point in the future. I'll also write about all the ideas we came up with for performance art pieces. 

Come, watch some YouTube videos with me.

I don't know what this is from but I like it. 

A classic. I've made so many people watch this upon finding out they don't know about Jan Svankmajer. I don't know why I care. 

I think if I met Johnny Flynn in real life it would break my heart because I would surely fall in love with him, but he is happily married to his longtime sweetheart. This isn't even my favorite performance video of his, it's just the one I have open in a tab on my laptop right now. 

It feels sort of self explanatory that I'd include an Ethel Cain video. 

I love old people...

I just think it's sweet. Hehe.

Have you seen this before? Surely, you have...

I'm a banjo fan, what can I say.

I started this last night and then didn't finish it but I suspect I'll do another some other time. I hope you enjoy. 

For Zach: when he said cathedrals everywhere, he really meant EVERYWHERE.

In chronological order. 

A beautiful sunset. 

Funny hen-basket decorations at a restaurant. 

Not my flowers, not my beer. (Just kidding, it was my beer.) I was seated outside at the only available table while my friends ordered food inside. 

A swan at the lake where my friends and I went for a swim. It was cold and I am afraid of swans. It was a lovely day. 

I went to a kind of experimental-ish theater piece in this space that's absolutely meant to be a grocery store or something like that. Have you ever seen a play where you have windows to outside? I hadn't ever before, but now I can say I have. The lead actor even went outside to yell into the street for a minute or two. 

Breakfast before work with a coworker. 

Dinner before a different experimental theater (live film, in this case) piece with a friend. 

The theater, looking quite grand. The yellow banner up top used to say "NONBINARY" for a while. We spent a very long time trying to translate the sign language (my friend's wife is deaf so she knows a little bit of German sign language). It says "tohuwabohu" in case you were wondering. 

My bus, taunting me. I've missed it three times this week in exactly this fashion, and I've only taken it three times this week. 

Fountain near my apartment, first time I've seen water in it. 

Shadows on my bedroom wall. I left the curtains open one night. 

Notes I took during a call at work so I could draw a detail for the mounting of a pendant luminaire in a slanted plaster ceiling.

Spring has sprung in Berlin!

I went to a modular synthesizer workshop today. I don't know anything about them and am not a musician and do not intend to get into them, but it was free and a friend of mine was going. I think this will now be one of the things I take every friend to when they come to visit me in Berlin. It was very cool. 

It can be difficult to manage it all.

One of the universal struggles we all face is that of time management. I think about love and romance all day every day, as I'm sure you can tell by now, but I think I think about time management even more. Isn't that so lame and embarrassing? But it's true. So here I am. 

I want to be able to do every single thing that interests me all the time and, unfortunately, so many things interest me. Recently, I've been going to the theater more. Shows are in the evenings. What else is in the evenings? Dancing. I need to coordinate between the shows I want to go to and the social dance events I want to go to. What else is in the evenings? Basically everything. I hate the 8 hour workday, I hate the 5 day work week. Ugh. It's just impossible! I wish I could take art classes and go for bike rides or yoga classes or what have you in the morning, then work for 5 hours, then go to a show or out to dinner with friends or out dancing or watch a movie at home. I never really watch movies. I never can spare the time to! And yet I spend so much time doing basically nothing. I want to go to museums and write stories and try every new hobby. 

This coming Thursday, I'm going to an introduction to synthesizers workshop with a friend of mine. I had to google what synthesizers look like. I have no previous interest or experience with them, but I love to learn new things and so I am going. Wouldn't it be so cool to make music?

There simply is not enough time to do all these things and run errands and do chores and lounge around in the park, chatting and hanging out. When am I supposed to find the time to file my taxes? (Don't worry, everything's already finished and sent in.) When am I supposed to get the haircut I so desperately need? I need to buy a new basic, everyday, nude bra! I've needed to for months! And yet I haven't! I've just been wearing the ill-fitting one I already have that is absolutely the wrong size now because I've recently lost weight. I barely cook! I wish I had more time and energy to cook. 

I am stuck between not knowing how to make time for all the friends I already have and wanting to make more friends and know everybody in the whole city, the whole world. I need to call my friends from back home and catch up with them. I need to call my friends from back home and plan their visits to come see me in Berlin. 

Although I am on hinge, I have no real interest at the moment in meeting people from there because I'd rather be making friends right now than going on first dates. Maybe that's also due to my current desire to meet a partner organically and have a romance that develops from a friendship. 

I need to learn more about bike maintenance! Can you believe I've never fixed a flat tire? I've changed a car tire but I know less about bike maintenance than car maintenance. Embarrassing! 

A friend of mine and I are starting a dnd campaign. Well, it's more that he's starting it and I'm participating in it. Our first meeting is in two and a half hours. I'd like to get into a rhythm of having certain things I do at certain times on certain days, but I'd also like to have a completely open and free schedule so that I can go wherever the wind takes me. But I have a full time job! How am I supposed deal with all of this? I don't know! 

What good problems to have. But problems nonetheless.