16th of November to the 30th of November

I keep the words of introduction to a minimum this time. Still a lot of catching up to do here. So let’s dive right in.

16th of November: “The subject of your last rant”

The German state of digitalisation, or rather the overengineering of convenience. Fuck me! In the beginning of the year I have been to London. I took the trains there: card in at the entry station and checked out at the arrival station - the smallest amount for that trip was calculated and charged. Here that would be the future. I try to calculate how many zones I pass before ordering a ticket at a machine or in one of many apps where none is intelligent enough to calculate the smallest cost of travel. People being afraid of not being able to pay with hard cash. Beggars had QR-codes in Shanghai, and even the small illegal street stands had the ability to pay 1 euro or so for food with your phone. There are food fairs in Germany where you can’t pay with card. Bureaucrazy is the name of the game. Want to renew your passport? Deal with unhappy clerks and get schooled for something that should require no human contact whatsoever (I read this will change). That stupid grin some people get when they hear electric cars, just to wait for the opportunity to chime in and show you how against that they are. Efficiency and facts be damned. Fucking horrid!

17th of November: “You have a terrible taste in your mouth.”

Ugh! It’s the normally wonderful coffee I enjoy in the morning when I find myself in the office. This time, not so wonderful. I added milk to it. There is also nothing too unusual about that. Usually I enjoy it with some 3.5% milk from one of the big cartons. We are out of those. Last week I bought some cream, but there is a different brand in the fridge, and it says bio with a nice green label. Unopened. There is a bottle cap under the pouring cap. Stupid. The cream goes into my coffee. Turns out that creamer bottle with the stupid double cap was bad. So bad it turned the wonderful coffee bad, and now my mouth tastes like battery acid with an earthy undertone mixed with spoiled titty milk.

18th of November: “Which magazine would I write an article for and what would I investigate about?”

I think this would be Wired instead of GQ. In my twenties I was reading GQ, but then it became half advertisements. Wired is still kind of cool. To me, it is The Verge but offline - if that makes sense. Anyhow, I would like to investigate the Xbox division of Microsoft. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see what they have planned for the future. Totally self-serving, I would like to peak at the games in development under all their studios, and I would like to hear what they really think of Playstation. I want to know the long term plan and see how they plan to develop their GamePass and what consoles (if any) are planned. I game a ton on my Xbox and love it and I would hold the horses on the things I am not supposed to say, but through the tone show if the outlook is negative or positive.

19th of November: “A familiar route blindfolded explained through sound”

When I leave the door, the hinges of the main door make an old creaky sound, until the lock secures the frame firmly. Then there is a flutter. Wings, sometimes they craw. I follow the sound of kids playing, screaming and more rarely crying. There I turn toward the sounds of beer bottles on concrete and lively chatter. A shop that is always open late. Right after the sounds and a quick hello from me to the friendly folks there, I cross carefully between reflecting surfaces of traffic sound that bounces between parked cars. Then there are sounds of people playing ball or badminton or kids frolicking. Later on from the other side the conversations everywhere, teens running and sometimes a bell calling all the sounds back inside. I walk towards the sound of brakes and rails and leave them slowly and carefully behind. The swoosh of automatic doors welcomes me, and I am at my destination.

20th of November: “Something rash, silly or bold in the name of love”

I have in fact not done anything rash, silly or bold in the name of love - at least I think. Coming to think of it, maybe it was a little weird and bold to take my now wife after knowing each other for like 2-3 months back to celebrate my 30th birthday back in Germany. It fascinates me how in movies there are those big rash or silly things that actors do in the name of love. Like the dude in this advertisement for the iPhone that runs into a sign just to hold his phone close enough to the girl he just saw inside the train. I get how this is something we can all relate to, but I guess I am not wired this way. It is very interesting. A co-worker once, without telling anyone, didn’t show up at work and found himself on a flight to the US from China for love. I get it, these life-changing events are important, and what is more important than love?

21st of November: “A six-word memoir for myself or someone else”

Never a dull moment with him.

22nd of November: “Finish this sentence”

“You don’t know how difficult it was when…” we had to shovel snow first thing in the morning. Most of us got up way before sunrise. We first got our cars freed from the snow of the night. Then we made a way that connected to the main street and at last we would shovel away all the snow to the entrance of the house. It was gruelling work, but it had to be done. We had to get to work on time somehow. Even if we could work from home, we were simply not allowed to. How could we check in and out of work from home? I don’t understand how you do not have a property by now. We had it more difficult.

23rd of November: “A Groucho Marx style one-liner from you”

I would never step down to your level of thinking, you probably bring a pen to type on a keyboard.

24th of November: “Your most productive time of the day and the rituals”

This must be the middle of the morning to me. So around 10 in the morning. By then I am fully awake, I had a couple of coffees or two big mugs of tea. I am not yet hungry at that time, nor thinking about food. My body is ready for a workout or peak performance, and I’d like to think my brain is too. As a matter of fact, I wrote the first 3 stories this morning around that time, and it hasn’t been easier since. So yeah, I usually read a bit before that, I make coffee or tea and will have my mind relatively fresh. I will be at work or at home during that time and can really take care of things. In the early morning I am okay too, after lunch I become a bit tired and depending on the day and my interactions with fellow humans throughout I need a break before being active in the evening. Evenings are great too but rather for me to be alone then or in company with some alcohol.

25th of November: “Something extravagant you’d do for others with a lot of money.”

This prompt also asks if you would do that for family and friends or extend it to strangers. I think I would treat everyone the same. I would do extended research into a group of people or some sort of facility that teaches kids, young adults and teens the joy of reading, and then I would just support them with everything they need to get the most amount of people to enjoy reading. Furthermore, I would buy all the books they need, rent out the biggest possible place they could need and hire fantastic and enthusiastic people to teach the joys of reading. Money for marketing and ads for that would also not be an issue. To me, that is extravagant.

26th of November: “Write about a time you felt ashamed”

Honestly, I don’t feel much shame. But thinking about this prompt, there is one story where I felt a tad of shame after in retrospect I find myself back then funny and bold. So I had a job second round for a job at Siemens when I was 16. The first round was an assessment centre that I passed. The second round was 8 people that had to go through a couple of questions, a group discussion where we had to slip into pre-determined roles and the final step was presentations on a topic that you find fascinating. I held an impromptu keynote on Hardcore. Where it comes from and Straight Edge, as well as the music and inspiration for that movement. Totally out of left field. Everybody listened, but it was a bit like an alien with a totally different anatomy describing how they go about reproduction. I was on fire and nobody fuelled it or put it out. I did not get the traineeship back then and felt a bit ashamed.

27th of November: “Describe a person through the marginalia of their life”

He always leaves his keys in a bird’s nest he found in the autumn of the year he graduated. His books all smell like from a library that hasn’t been visited in years. The man always wears the same hat. A hat made from mushroom mycelia. All the lights in his humble flat have the exact same temperature as burning candles, and in the winter they are joined by candles. The kitchen smells like onions cooking in butter. And his clothes carry a wooden scent with hints of tobacco and cat.

28th of November: “A simple physical act and its consequences”

I could write something about it, but I already have. Back when I was doing a creative writing course, I did an exercise that had the following short story as an outcome:

Yoga is my passion

120 kilos are rooted firmly to the ground while I am squatting on the floor of my tiny apartment. I push up, stretch my arms overhead, let the hands touch above my head - think - like a candle. Here comes my cool-down. I lift my left foot and angle my leg at the knee to move it up, but there I am shaking. My hips sway in violent motions left to right to balance me but fail. My hands raise downwards towards the wall to stabilise what my hips failed to and my fingernails scratch the wallpaper until they dig a bit into it and my hands take my weight and push against the wall. My left leg still in the air I am a tripod with my arms being strong kickstands. Instead of left foot rooting me again, the wall gives way, like a wilting piece of wood - grey dust flies into my face. My body like a huge wrecking ball unstoppably moves further through the two cracks that become one shaped vaguely like my body or an iron church bell that halts for 59 out of 60 minutes but for that 1 minute just does it’s thing and so do I. I move through the wall hands first, head second, body third. Feeling helpless like a candle being blown out in a hurricane. In the 2 seconds my fall takes I notice my apartment extending to that of my neighbour. I see him. Sitting there, with his dreadlocks, a bong in hand on a colourful rag that covers his soft bed in a tie-dye mandala. I can’t tell the smoke from the dust I am creating. As I lift my chin up from his floor, my second chin following straight ahead a golden buddha with the sun behind him grins at me from a poster saying: Let That Shit Go…

29th of November: “What kind of op-ed could you submit to your local paper”

This would be for sure something about hardcore and metal concerts in the city. There would be praise for some local small and mid-sized clubs that have made a name and are a stop for fantastic bands from all over the world. I would point out the connections that this city has for some bands and liken it to Wagner and Schumann. If not that then I would write abot the rising comedy scene in this city. Since almost exactly one year from nothing rose a variety of great clubs, formats and open mics which became a scene of fantastic people that are way underrepresented and not adervertised enough.

30th of November: “See no evil, hear no evil… as a jump off point for a confession”

As they say: “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” - I was wearing a mask. It’s time to come clear. Up until now I was perfectly miming the three monkeys that you have on your mahagony desk here, sir. First I and everyone around me pretended not to have seen anything that has been going on. We all saw it. I watched as it all went down. I was the scout, the alarm bell, and the eagle eye. No one heard us. Complete silence everywhere. The droning sound of the highway drowned out everything we did. I didn’t do much apart from the planing and scouting, as you might have heard by now. As for the speaking, we all sat this out. Not a sound, not a sentence, and no confession from anyone of us. Let me be the mouth now. I will admit everything I have done, and speak about the heist, but only if you get a camera crew in here and have me in the shot with the monkeys in the back. How about that?