2 x 1006

Do 2 much, go 2 far. Dare 2 try. You won’t get far. Consequences in 2 faces spit, but not 2 long. Cos it’s the very last of years. 2 times thousand and six.

Run 2 your life, it's never 2 late (Can’t have your cake and eat it, 2). It won’t last long.. 2 short now 2 regret. Cos it’s the very last of years. 2 times thousand and six.

HIDING WHERE YOU'LL FIND ME

You can do one thing only. Ready or not. Like it or not. You just can’t do anything else. And you’re going crazy cos it’s never finished. You are. In a state, ununited. Put the thing away, drop it, smash it. It’ll be back soon.

The highlights of their days are trivial. Every talk is small. You can't be bothered. And when you are, you’re with them in the flesh; spirit fixating on the one and only something. In circles. Over and over again. Again, again, again and again. It’s never gone. You are.

It's like love, this strive for perfection. So you can only be alone. It's like love, a scary thing. So you crave company. Someone like you, only simpler. An embrace in which you could hide and never get out. The let’s-call-it understanding, the warmth of seeming to be-long. But you won't be-long. Soon it will be back.

I never asked for it. Crap. Artist. Artisan. You name it. Congratulations, yeah right. Like it's something to CongRatulAte uPon.

ARTERIES

I didn't dare cycle in the forest yesterday. I was too scared. I trusted that fear in the way you only trust the irrational – totally.

It was the heart that made me so afraid of going the usual way, the way down. Irrational. So I listened. ”Don’t make waves, don’t make yourself(,) a clot," I heard. ”You trusting me is you trusting you.” Irrational. I listened again. And so I stuck to the main arteries that time.. No going against the flow, no risk of anything jumping out from behind the arch of the aorta.

I let the heart pump me out and about in the same direction as the rest of the school. Upstream, but not against the stream. A rush of blood to the head? No, a levelled, balanced flow.. That's how I reached the brain cells. But they are so hopelessly useless in explaining fears and trusts. All they can make you do is stand up to something by playing it down or follow it by rationalizing.

I trusted the heart, not the brain. I don't believe what people say.. that trust needs to be well-earned, and fear – well-grounded. That there must be experience involved. Real trust is, by nature, sudden and instinctive. And it's given lightly. Otherwise, I make it acquirement, fossilization, lie. Real fear is just as immediate, inexplicable. Otherwise, it's only a phobia.

I can only trust a world in which trusts and fears are irrational. I also feel it's not the only way they are connected. Cos I fear that trust.

"IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED, NOT SO LONG AGO.."

One of the most absorbing dreams I’ve ever dreamt took place in the early 70s. Took time is more like it. What a misfit I was in my twenty-first century out-fit.. But I felt right in (the) place. I took a good look and an even better breath of the forty-years-younger air and headed to visit my eighteen-year-old parents. That’s what I'd travelled in night-time for. And I knew exactly where to find them.. After all, in thirty years' time the very same red-brick high school would become my own.

I had that dream a few good years ago, but only now do I feel that I was born too late. Not because of the dream alone. Not because I enviously wish I had been there to appreciate the then music, the fashion. Not because things were rarely made in China, of plastic. Not even because there was lots of post, not post-. Why(,) then? Visuals – somewhat monochromatic, tastes – macrobiotic. It was okay to be a virgin. Of any kind. Things were rated, harder to get.. It required effort to have. A hobby, a girlfriend, a whatever.

Shouldn’t the “now” go all red to hear that..? Knows no shame, so.. no. But flamboyant as it is.. just look.. it pales. In contrast. In comparison.

HOW TO HAVE FUN AT HOME?

The question mark takes it into consideration. Makes it a serious quest(ion).

Back from work. There’s light, there’s air, there’s company. Artificial, artificial, artificial.

There’s stuff to do. But I won’t do it. It’s either neither or both, which makes the (s)hook of the head turn (out) in the right direction. Not sinister, not this time. There’s intelligence going artificial. Still.

There’s more(s). An awful lot. Can one be less free than within the more and more of free-dom? And shouldn’t there be in(tro)verted commas on that one? Okay, crooked.. enough, I follow. There should be some more.

There’s a 'happy' meal to try to eat, my head chop-chopper reminds me. Not merry, not this time. At l(e)ast.

...

There's thoughts parking. Indicating.. right..? I keep me company. Caution indicated.

NG

Yes, Angie is explosive. And it is not solid. But is this the matter of choice, really? The not-solid Angie cannot be the rolling stone you see.. It only is what it is: a liquid, and a trans-parent one. And so it flows, both assuming and sculpting the shape of the surroundings. If you don’t mishandle, it will never go off. Needs to be hit, dropped or shaken.. forced to send the carefully manufactured, neighbouring molecules into the neverwhere. And Angie prefers to apply itself elsewhere, assist those with hearts under attack, really. Slowly disperse in their mouths, sweet and acrid in taste (they say). Bring them some moss to rest upon. Or to chew and spit out, but nevermind.

Yes, Angie is explosive. And it is not solid. But it's active. And this is the matter of choice.

REAL TIME

I want nothing. No thing can prevail and no(t) one shall. Arm’s length and shortness of sight. Nowhere.. now here.. such a fine, fine line. The now is what matters. And it(s) matters.

Don’t visualize what should only be felt, what can get imagined at the very merry least. The know-how, the can-do. Don’t you all have it? Don't you have it all? So fuck the show. And tell.

WYSIWYG?

What you see is what you get? No. Not always. Not this time. Maybe not ever. I wanted to be made. Please turn a blind eye to this homophonic layer suggesting certain connotations. So I have been made.. into a little (bit of a) scribe, a little (bit of a) project coordinator, interpreter, translator, secretary, junior advisor.. a little (bit of) whatnot. I am an assistant, so I assist in this a-little-bit-of-this(,)a-little-bit-of-that kind of way. And I’ve just concluded that it cannot be more obvious why I’m not a manager.. What a bout of self-awareness, huh? Triple huh. This awareness is no reflection on me though.. Aaah, so I have managed some little thing after all..

I’m also a language learner, you know, you knooow.. But this myself has made myself into. What you see is what you get? Again, hell no. With this language, you can forget the sense of sight. So I can see, store, recall. So what? It won’t stop the sound in its tracks. And it’s the sound that I'm chasing, at breakneck speed and yet.. Too always too slow I am.. Androids might dream of electric sheep, but dragons won't stop for hitchhikers.

PANTA RHEI

Look. No use crying in the shower. It’s a waste of many good tears someone could otherwise have noticed. Transparent liquid? Must be water. All look, but who tastes what looks like the obvious? Why taste it for salt? No use. It all goes down the same drain anyway.. salt or no salt.. shit or no shit.

Look. Something has been spilt. Passive. I have spilt the something. Active. I'm crying over the something. Active. Present. Continuous.

Look what I've done. I’ve wasted time. I've wasted "water". All down the drain.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

O. Type. Negative.

Disappointment: the “you are here” sign with this bulb flashing over the head. To step up or out of the uneven (odd..) light it gives out? No, this you can’t manage.

Numbness: everything old is new again. Despite the pink & out & fit, sunny shades and the music (I thought) I could finally face..

Jealousy: I didn’t even know the earth that’s scorched can become the grass that’s greener. Oxford Syndrome..?

Stress: I’m a chest nut. And an oxy moron..

"SHE'S A MAN-EATER.."

The other evening. We are lying on the bed, me mourning over the father getting rid of all the charcoal remnants. No barbecue party then. No two’s company. The sister turns on her usual uplifting mode. "- Hey, let’s make a fire instead," says she. And then, "- I’ll cut your fingers off and we'll roast them, what say you?" An uplifter? Yes. And no.. I hear the familiar click as the head projector starts a frantic slide show.. Not again! It's all in front of me. I get desensitizied, have my fingers cut off, sprinkled with spices, grilled and served together with French fries, French salads and a cruelly inviting smile of a French waitress. Now, would that dish look or smell any different from those featuring other kinds of red meat? Not at all. And so I wouldn’t be able to tell that it was actually myself I was having for dinner! Well, unless it was my left hand that lacked fingers and I had nothing to hold the food in.

It goes without saying how uncomfortable the whole idea made me feel. Still, it's not a revelation that what is known as me is just as edible as those creatures portioned and served on my plate every Sunday. How funny.. You might even know you’re made of this.. luscious meat and that it’s consumed in some cultures, but the moment of realization results in a wave of nausea anyway. Well, self-disgust it was in my case.. At that very point, I wanted to call it all off, spare the sausages and become a vegetarian. It suddenly punched me right between the eyes that one should only eat raw, unprocessed food. This leaves.. leaves, fruit and vegetables (for most) and maybe fish and dairy such as milk or eggs (for some).

If you can’t bring yourself to eat your food raw, you shouldn’t have the right to process it, you shouldn’t have the right to eat it. I think that whatever you have to kill and process first is NOT suitable for human consumption. And quite probably, this is the only healthy way of thinking. Fair enough, at least for those not wanting to be treated like somebody (something) else’s prospective meal. Eating meat is eating what you too consist of. It is a yes to cannibalism.

Having said this, I didn’t practice what I've just preached, not that very night. I’m still a man-eater and therefore.. a hypocrite. But I had to drink a lot of wine to be able to swallow the meat we finally roasted. And I didn’t pick the dessert hanging down from the nearby apple tree.. Instead, I knelt down (read: bowed) and looked for some unattached fruit in the evening dew. This deed isn't much, I know, but I have nothing else to say for myself for now.

MAYBE, BABY

Only a few days ago I celebrated my being exactly three months gone. What a happy occasion, a real shower of memories, (to) the best of my recollection. But.. nobody has noticed yet. And so there is this one question knocking about my brain.. Shouldn’t it be beginning to show? Shouldn’t it.. by now? Well, it does, but not the way it should.

Foreign as he is to me, this little monster I am carrying around, we hit it off and have been friends ever since. Or so I thought. Would a friendly creature keep you up at night and round off your stomach? Would he grow on and in you with such velocity and bent? Not being for this world yet, would he cry for your full time and attention? Would he kick so soon, so.. hard?

Looks like this self-indulgence he’s performing on me is far from symbiotic. No fruit will be born, sorry. I have a parasite. An unborn teenager on speed.

Terminate.. then? Hasta la vista, baby? “I’ll be back”, clatters the kicker in Morse code. Well, I’ll wait for the labour then and see if I can bear it. I might even want to keep the thing, should I find resemblance. I probably will. Six months to go and he’s already like the mom-me. A troublemaker.

RASSSK

A shopping spree! Yesss. I’ve been shopping with abandon for over a week now. Have spent some quality time on quality assurance of some more quality time. Aaaa, so that’s what savings are for.. Have I just bought some good time or taken the “rainy day” expression a little too literally? One of the two, but anyhow, let’s blame it on the weather. Or under it.

I got myself a bike! New, shiny and black, but out of.. tune. So tun(n)ing shall transpire to accessorize the bliss of being on the move again. Ta-dam! Fireworks? No, but there will be beams and rays. Or "traffic lights".. that's how I (will) call them at least.

And I got myself a ball! Since I’ve already got one, I'm officially “a girl with balls” now.

There’s also a tennis table under consideration.. My idea of a werewolf piece of furniture to place in the living room. Will only come out at night to live half its double life to the full.. In daylight, under cover, a loyal servant of his mistress and commanderess. Yesss. Being an ordinary table may be a dead end job, I know, but the nights with the mistress (and other.. playboys and girls) will certainly make up for it.

JIVE

Thirsty? Have a drink. Still thirsty? Have another round.

Hungry? Do twenty push-ups. Or something similar, activating your endorphinuous (erogenous?) zone. Still hungry? Have another round. Unbelievable as it may sound, it’s a universal tip, and it works (sooner or later) or.. you die trying. Either way, it keeps the mind off gorging and the owner away from any gorge material. For good.

All those wise guys preaching you must cut down on this and that (read: carbohydrates and fats) and invite some physical activity to your life.. How educated and idealistic of them! But how many succeed? It’s possible to count even if you lack a few fingers.. That’s how many. I'd gladly use one of my middle fingers to show and tell the white coats what I make of all this.

I say: don’t change your eating habits and add exercise. Don’t change and add at all. Replace. Preferably your evening meal with a workout.

And I don't just say it, but mean it. I too ride a bike at dinnertime. With all my heart troubled by breakneck pedaling it needs to pump up to. Benefits are plenty more. All the good (read: fattening) things served for dinner get out of sight. And after an hour or two I eat.. not or I eat.. well. Onwards to the reasons. I sometimes don’t feel hungry (exercise really keeps one’s mind off everything else) and if I do (because sometimes it doesn’t), I choose something macrobiotic to eat. Why? Because otherwise all the effort will go to waste! Psychologically speaking, burning 500 calories (or more) is too rewarding to be ignored and spoilt just like that. So good proteins and vitamins it is. A proper meal!

And at times I come back so exhausted that I can’t even lift a fork.. I say fork, because it’s only wise to stay away from knives under these circumstances. Too easy to mishandle..

And sometimes.. I can’t even open the fridge to make my dinner. So beautifully effective, yet paradoxical. My hands not exactly tied, and yet.. no choice, no choice..

I, ROBOT

Every body is on holiday. Mine is no exception here, much to my despair. I'm not fooling anyone.. I can't even express despair just now. My mind, still quite far from red hot and alert, is now being followed by the body-trudger. I got used to this half-witness I've been experiencing for some time now, but I thought it would be only intellectual tasks that would get out of the magnetic, mesmerizing reach of the brain. But no, it’s all tasks, at all times. Suddenly, I’m an iron maiden, an obsolete iron without a soul. The metal trap won’t move, all it wants is to be fed and to hibernate soon after. Preferences? Yes, the heavier and greasier the fodder, the better and more satisfying for the unwieldy piece of junk. Machines don't fancy organic good. Watering the thing is not welcome either (not even with electrolytes) - it wants rest, not rust.

Science fiction literature is full of stories featuring machines developing human-like intelligence and taking over the universe. But this current state of mine makes me think this one time literature is quite wrong. If something like this ever happens, it will be the other way round. Picture this: real intelligence becomes artificial, brain creases ironed out by the wit and sophistication of the media. Modern work- and lifestyle, artificial limbs, plastic and cosmetic surgeries, fashion and “beautification” in general turns the flesh heavy-duty, but hefty and unreal.. Just imagine.. or take a look around.

"I'M NOT A WITCH, I'M NOT A WITCH!"

Not again! Another black cat failed to dare cross my path the other day and.. yet another one the day after.. Well, it had happened many, many times before but seemed to stop when (<--) this little fellow appeared in the household and stayed. Phew, I thought then. It's tamed. So I’m not a witch after all. Yes, that’s what I would think before. Who wouldn’t? Black cats, traditionally associated with witchery, suddenly changing their alpha-wave minds and ways because of me were not the only reason. Add a bunch of friends calling me a witch, witcha, small town witch and .. they have been good friends, which makes it all maliciously close to a (home) truth. It’s all back now, the cat thing, much to my amazement.

But let’s not freak out. Let’s ascribe some sensible meaning to it. Why would a cat (invariably black) come near the edge of a road, look my way and rally to reverse like the road is not a road but a chasm of immediate peril? Well.. isn't that what all pussies do..?

13.07.

A perfect day. Me and the sister indulging in laughter in the middle of many streets, causing dirty and puzzled looks in many strangers. Me and the sister hearing from this one guy in this one street that IF WE ONLY WERE 18, HE WOULD ASK US OUT (Yeah, I knoooow..). Me and the sister successfully finishing this six-month project of ours, beautifully printed, acknowledged and hard-wired (in me at least). Me and the sister celebrating completing the very project with beverages of national colours.

And yet, a flaw. This power play.. good at criss-cross as I am, this time I twiddled with the felt tip. What a match to find.

And yet, a.. what? Spontaneous combustion. What a match to lose.