4th of February to the 13th of February

So this has not been a good week. It started with a scratchy throat and I refrained from going to the office like I usually do on Mondays. It got worse throughout the week. On Thursday night I managed a short and all-new comedy set but then on Friday, it felt like someone ripped my tonsils out. Turns out it is tonsilitis. Could be scarlet fever as this is what 5+ kids in my child’s Kindergarten have. Anyhow, I am now on Antibiotics and this will be a thing of the past hopefully soon. My throat doesn´t hurt as much anymore and I am skipping the painkillers but the side effects of Antibiotics kick in and that is sad. So many months of having great gut bacteria and sometime next week we will have to start fresh. I haven’t been to the lake in more than a week and won’t be until next weekend. Meanwhile here are my writings and respective prompts until today:

4th of February: “Quitting and the freedom that comes with it”

In my life so far quitting always meant a better outcome. Freedom is waiting someplace or somewhere else and the grass really is greener on the other side. I am glad I have never quit my academic endeavours, even though I felt so at times. Mostly a year in at a new school. The first time I quit and felt an immense rush of freedom was when I quit my self-employment selling insurance when I was 22 or so. I hated working 7 days a week. I hated working when other people had time off and just receiving money when I sold something. Only a few people made a decent living and I was doing okay, but was this what I wanted to do for the rest of my life? Fuck no! I thought of what I wanted to do: become a monk in China and/or visit Jackie Chan. I looked into things to study and found a mixture of Chinese and Economics thought in the city I lived in. I applied, secured my finances and lived a student life from then on. I eventually met Jackie Chan, but I did not become a monk. After finishing my studies I made the mistake to jump headfirst into the first job that was offered to me (this can be a trap a lot of people can fall into if they don’t come from money). I hated it. Every second. I was good at it, but I was monitored. My time on the phone was tracked and that became a conversation piece in monthly reviews of my work. Fuck that! I took the first job that would get me back to China and the freest I ever felt was the second time in Shanghai with a tiny suitcase, two jeans, a handful of clothes, 2000 Euros in the bank and a new paycheck of 300 Euros a month and a shared bunkbed for 100 Euro. Cigarettes were cheap and I found a better-paying job after 3 months, but I never felt better in terms of things that are out there for me. Did you quit something and felt that freedom?

5th of February: “A short story of single syllables”

This one time I saw a man with a long shlong. I do ice baths. The cold ones. The ones that make you feel great but make your sex small. An old fellow went in after me, I stayed to see if he makes it out. He did not fall. He did not falter. He just dried off and went home. So I did the same. On the way back I saw a tall man. Came out of the water. Dreads on his head. Long, tall and lean. 2 metres of stature. Minus two degrees did not make his sex small. It was as long and tall as his body. A big meat monster dangled where we would not show much. He walked proudly as he should and I wondered what he does for work. :)

6th of February: “The things that make you weird as a kid make you great tomorrow”

I couldn’t agree more. I was a weird kid. In school, I was often completely lost in my own world and dreamed away. Mostly the last that got his pencil and books out but I would participate in class and just get my 2 Cents in wherever I could. One time on the way home I told my friend the whole plot of the first X-Men movie, I believe it took me more than an hour to recite the story. Later I was so obsessed with becoming a firefighter that I was the first kid that could be in firefighter training at age 11. 12 was the normal starting point. I ended up telling the dirtiest jokes that I did read or heard and enjoyed making people double to triple my age laugh. So that potty mouth with really dirty jokes was there but I was also weird to obsessive with greeting people. I used to greet everyone. Coming from a small town that is probably more common but I kept that for a very long time and today I still am super friendly with people in the service industry sometimes to a detriment but whatever. I still tell dirty jokes and really enjoy storytelling. Instead of reciting whole movies, I line up a couple of YouTube videos that I want to show my guests or I just tell them what happened since we last met. I hope it makes me great, if not a bit weird still.

7th of February: “Come face to face with an animal but you are the animal”

It has been 14 naps since the little ones slipped out of me in the moonlight. I found a place deep inside the dense trees. A little dip in the ground that was filled with brown needles from those tries. Soft, warm and big enough for me and whatever should come out of my body. It happened quickly and I don’t remember much. There was blood, and there were 6 little pigs one by one making their way into the moonlight. Then there was a little something, the size of the little pigs that smelled really good. Maybe too good. Maybe so good that it could attract someone or something that has it out for little pigs. So I devoured it and licked the blood of the pigs. We napped, I got out to get some food, we napped more, they latched, we napped, latching again and so on. A new rhythm for me. Room for them to grow. Me to secure their growth. Then I hear movement. Some animal on two feet. They smell. Bad. Unnatural mostly. I hear three pairs of feet. They come closer. Some of the dense trees around me rustle. I have to protect my little pigs. I step out of the dip. Make the loudest noise I can and right there in front of me a set of eyes. Too much white in those eyes I charge towards those eyes, and they quickly turn around and run. I can’t decide which one of the set of legs to follow and remember that I need to protect the dip and my little piglets. I make another loud sound and cuddle again up to the warm little bodies and they latch. The sounds of the sets of legs are further and further away. We nap.

8th of February: “Think of your favourite food and describe it only through texture”

My favourite food is something with a super crispy outside that gives way to some gluten texture and then a sauce that envelops the bread you just bit in with something that softens it further until your teeth hit the crisp and tender chicken meat. While all of this happens some fresh and crunchy bits of lettuce and veggies surprise the teeth and tongue. A few times dry and flakey chilli pieces find their way and tickle your mouth. With the sauce and the mix of textures, you can swallow after 3 or four bites because you are greedy and hungry but you should chew more often which then combines the textures into something that just fills the inside of your mouth in the most satisfying way. There is nothing that you would miss texture-wise if you have that food. All you would need after having it is another one or a salty yoghurt drink to remember the goodness for longer. Can you guess what the food is? It can be vegetarian or vegan too and most commonly is made with beef. There are many versions around the world but the one in Germany is a tad more exciting than anywhere else.

9th of February: “Record the last thing you thought about in the shower”

Showering is something that I combine with podcasts, so I generally just think about whatever the topic of the podcast is. This has been Waldorf and Anthroposophy. It just made me angry. I thought how stupid can people be to fall for some really old, really questionable and really unscientific borderline racist? There is a massively popular line of bio foods in Germany by a huge anthroposophic brand. Vegans and vegetarians and all sorts of hipsters, mommies, daddies, they/them and everyone are into them. It’s bio. What is not too like? For example, the founder Rudolf Steiner was a proper racist. Farmers that work in said huge company have to bury cow horns filled with dung on every hectare of their farmland to fertilise and fill the horn with energy. Do you know what that is? Unscientific bullshit. There is nothing wrong with using fewer fertilisers or natural fertilisers. There is nothing wrong with bio-farming and its principles. There is everything wrong with esoteric bullshit magic and racist theories. So those were my shower thoughts.

10th of February: “The cure for grief is motion”

I do agree with this sentiment. However in my mind, one can achieve motion through music and this has worked for me more often than physical motion. I am not a fan of running. I hate it. Biking is okay but also only with a goal. In a car, I find that motion a bit dangerous. So my motion is safe and sound. Literally. I run into a world of sadness and later some perseverance and sometimes anger to catapult me out of grief. This can be some Max Richter, Katatonia, Counterparts, Misery Signals, The Ghost Inside or Converge. It can be a soundtrack that you can dive into. Something that gets you as far away from the sad reality as possible and helps you find a path out of that hole. To climb out of the pit of tears. Some darkness to cover yourself with and see the shimmers of light more clearly. Move with music and you overcome. It gets easier with time.

11th of February: “MacGyver as a verb”

I am not a handyman. Sadly! I used to say that I can be glad that I can have some pictures hung up on the wall without them being crooked or having my fingers hurt in the process. This has been that way for a long time. I can report that I successfully put together a big closet, multiple Ikea furniture and so much more. It feels good to finish stuff like that. I enjoy Lego too. But just a couple of weeks ago I macguyvered a wall mount for a vacuum on the wall. The thing is our walls are either super soft, old and crumbly or straight-up Adamantium. The wall for the wall mount was the crumbly type. I eye-measured where the holes should be and marked them with a pen. I drilled two holes but then the screws with the dowels just straight up slipped out and pieces of the wall had to be vacuumed up again. Not what I wanted as the vacuum should have a place to rest. So I got the tip to hot glue the holes and then fit the dowel and screws. The vacuum since then can do his job without having to clean below the mount and I felt like MacGuyver. I really liked that guy when I was a kid, such a friendly face and a great haircut. Also, back when the show was one my aunt had one of those vacuums that sucks your hair in and cuts it. It worked.

12th of February: “A homolinguistic translation”

One night in a melancholic state, I thought, exhausted and tired,

resting over beautiful books of lost tales -

Almost falling asleep, suddenly there came a knocking,

then a cracking, croaking at the entrance.

“Is it a guest?” I whispered “croaking at my entrance door -

Just that and not much more.”

I have never done that. It’s basically a translation of a short poem from English to English. Do you recognise the one I used to base this on?

13th of February: “Continue the story”

For once the fulgent sun was not a welcome sight… Exhausted we threw the equipment on the ground. A couple of rifles, nets, bows and metal cutlery. The light made us more vulnerable. The first rays of the sun made our sweat glisten. It also made our already heated-up bodies even warmer. Our suttle sweaty odours will become a stink. A path for them to follow, find us and take revenge. In the past few days, we learned to love the night, the wet moss on the forest floor that swallowed the sound. The darkness helped us hide our large bipedal bodies a bit better than Camouflage could do that. In the harsh light of day, our outlines became more visible. Dangerously so. Our instruments for survival and destruction became as visible as a wolf’s exposed teeth. This might shield and help us but it also made us stick out more in a natural environment. We are not part of the same nature. We have to work against the sun, against nature against everything that made us what we are once and we shun too far from it after the planet took revenge. Now neither the sun nor the full moon is a sight that we welcome, we only welcome potential food in our sights. That is our nature.