the affair behind london's back...

When I left london
we said it wasn't a break up
but all that
darling you know you're the only one I ever have, ever do, ever will
already felt false...

I saw london yesterday
It had been months, it felt like years
our embrace was stiff
I miss you, when are you coming back
she whispered
coming ? Back?
And as I wondered
my hands found familiarity in her curves
roving but not really wanting
I miss you
she said again
I pulled away, gently
placed a voluminous wine glass in her hand
which she drank as quickly as I poured

I saw london yesterday
She had that warm watery look in those grey eyes
that I still loved but maybe now felt
less engaged by
and her curves were...too familiar...
I miss  you darling
she said
I miss you too
I said, far... too .. quickly
maybe with not quite enough feeling
maybe because I hadn't really missed her at all
And suddenly I realised she had been talking for hours
I hadn't heard a single word
too busy daydreaming about
berlin.

I saw london yesterday
I took her out for a meal.
Candlelit, romantic
but then
Berlin walked by our table
glided more like
brushed by me
accidentally
entshulidgung
she walked off
shoulders tanned and bare
she was glowing
...was it from last night?
More likely  this morning?
meanwhile
London was talking
about her failed attempts to give up smoking.
Berlin came up behind me,
indulgently exhaled
tobacco and nicotine and....
her smoky breath danced along my neck
and I froze with how fiercely I wanted her
Berlin asked to join our table
London greeted her cautiously
Berlin suggested sunbathing topless, tomorrow morning
London said maybe, depending on where
Berlin shrugged “anywhere”
and I remembered how i'd told berlin I really wished she wouldn't grope me in public
and she had said i'd been with london far too long.

I saw london yesterday
she said I looked amazing
then began an interrogation
what had I, where had I, who was I?
Berlin sauntered by, interrupting
maybe she's getting a lot less done
but she's certainly having far more fun
I slept with London last night
It was good but not great
and I woulnd't say berlin is a better lover
but she definitely has a dynamic way
of getting to me.
When Berlin kisses me
she keeps a hand free
eyes gleaming  wickedly
rolling into bed with another another,
turns to me smiling
mouthing; join me.

I tried to tell Berlin I had to leave
I told her this could only be temporary
there had been too many nights out  ending at sunrise
nervously I suggested,
maybe I should try to take it easy
Berlin lacht. Pleite, aber, always geil...
I told her I was going for a visit
london had been calling, texting,emailing, skyping, facebooking
I told berlin I would be gone for a little while
or rather I tried to tell her
but It had been too loud in that bar
she was ein bitschen betrocken at that open air
she was a little occupied with that couple at the after hour.
I'm going I said
stay she said
pressed several pills into my hand
and definitely didn't notice when I left

I saw london last night
she was moody
I charmed her out of it
we ended up having
make up sex
It was a struggle not to call out berlin's name
but london
knows
doesn't want to push the query
won't ask what i'm thinking
feels me reconsidering
I saw london last night
and all I could think about
was berlin....

reclaim your streets...

I grew up in washington dc. i went to my first gay pride march at fourteen, even though my thoughts on my own sexuality weren't terribly queer. (i have an embarrasing recollection of carrying a sign that year with a pink triangle and the slogan *straight but not narrow*) then i moved to london, and i found the friends i made initially, in bars, in clubs, in random arts events. Liberal they all may have been, but politics didn't interest them, voting was regarded as a waste of time. when i went to my first gay pride march in london, I soon found out that the number of people who went to the march, were vastly outnumbered by the number of people who went to the *after* party. so at some point i stopped going to either.

i'm pretty sure many other marches and demos in later years were missed because i was set building or painting, or filming. Then september 11th happened,and made me realise i couldn't just tune out what was happening in the world anymore. i went to the anti war demo in london shortly after. and i was more than a little depressed to see how the british government pushed on even with such massive lack of support. so when the london attacks happened and then were attempted a second time, the idea of attending any kind of demo again was beyond me.

Since moving to berlin demos seemed something that were happening often, for all sorts of reasons and causes. May day for me was the oddest of these, a kind of pseudo demo/ anti-capitalist festival; with marches taking place protesting against capitalism, fascism, and racism. it was better than any may day i'..d been to in london, but also felt (in comparison to london) a bit like notting hill carnival -lite (that actually turned out to be the karneval de kultur)

But one demo i had really wanted to go to but didn't was a queer kissathon. the organizers wanted as many queer people as possible to kiss in same sex couples in various places in kreuzberg, neukolln and freidrichshain to promote queer visability and protest homophobia. it sounded like a cute idea, that could be nice to film. and then i remember the day before, explaining the concept of the demo to a couple of straight guy friends, both who are fairly openminded, and both found the concept kind of silly. what was the point? they questioned. there are loads of gay people here in berlin, you see gay couples holding hands together, its not a problem. why not go to a city in germany that really needs to see change: and they satirised the concept of gay pride festivals. *yeah drag queens and caipirinias*. and i have to admit i kind off didn't feel strong enough to challenge them. i wasn't sure myself. I didn't go.

The thing is I lost the point of gay pride marches at some point, and demos and protests in general. you show up and you hold banners and shout slogans and maybe people take your picture and there's a bit of chaos losing and finding your friends, but what did it achieve really?? totally aside from the fact; that on the gay issue, it feels a little strange for me to go to queer pride events when my dating life has been progressively more straight over the last year

At any rate, last night i called thatf**kingsara, and she was pretty shaken up. there had been a drag king festival at so36, a venue in the heart of kreuzberg (my kiez) . A nazi gang drove by afterwards as the event finished. they had baseball bats. they beat up a number of women who had attended the event. some were here without a visa, leaving them terrified to go to the hospital despite how badly they had been beaten.

you don't think this kind of sh*t happens anymore. Especially not in cities like berlin, especially not in neighborhoods like kreuzberg. or maybe rather, you can get lulled into a false sense of secuirty and forget. sara told me there would be a demo happening today. i said i would go. i arrived late . and by the time i got to the meeting point they had moved on. i asked person after person if they had seen a demo and finally found a couple of cyclists also trying to catch up wiht the march. we cycyled together, and when we finallly met up with the demo at kotti i was totally shocked at how many people were there. i locked up my bike, attempted and failed to get a hold of sara and ended up walking for sometime with the march but on my own.

And for the first time in a long time i understood what the point of a demo was. this was truly reclaming the streets. traffic was stopped, and i heard passerby and people sitting in cafe's along the street asking in german and english what the purpose of the demo was, and again and again i heard explanations being given, and this was the point. by the end of the demo 3500 people had marched, organized entirely by email, sms and myspace in a matter of days. and in this way berlin really impressed me again. because when friends of mine have been attacked and assaulted in london. we tend to tell a few close friends, generally keep quiet about it and often not even report it to the police. here a whole community banded together instantly just on principle. for someone they may or may not have known. this is what solidarity is, this is what raising awareness is.

and i guess i learned once again that as much as its fine to play and get lost in yourself.

its also important to stay aware and wake the f*ck up...

thisisnotahostel

aiiiiii those londoners and their bank holiday weekends. for the last week had eight, yes EIGHT people in town visiting all at once. pretty hectic and stressful at times but altogether lots of fun. a german friend commented that i would be really gutted if no one came to visit at all. and admittedly stressing about how you will spend time with all the people who you would really like to see who would like to see you is most definitely a first world problem.

highlights of the last week of the british invasion include a fantastic gig from the wonderful duo that is tetine. they played at hebbel hau zwei as part of this brazilian festival. and i was more than a little chuffed to see how much the crowd got into it. gigs in arts venues are always a bit tricky, but those two tore it up. afterwards was a reallly dirty baille funk dj set. danced so much i sweated off all my make up. dj turned out to know thatf*kingsara, i gave her props for the set she was playing, and  ended up dancing with this guy who turned out to be part of this breakdancing crew who was on tour. he invited me to come see his show the next night, and i felt kind of ridiculous when i explained i couldn't, becuase saturday night i had a rehearsal for a short film, and then a mate from manchester was djing in this club in xberg, and then i had to go to another club friends from london were djing at in mitte, (this is not including the two other invitations i had declined, a houseparty in friedrichsein a random boy at tape club had invited me to the night  before, and a gig my friend lucas's band was playing)

(didn't i move here to get away from the chaos that is my life in london? i wondered)

the dj moved from baille funk to missy elliot. i started dancing again. but then in true cinderella fashion i realised it was getting late late late, and i had promised i'd go see my friend alex spin at glasscube. and now its like sometime before three, and its a twenty minute cycle away. so i say good bye to the b boy, and the dj, and  tetine, grab my friend winta and cycle over to mitte. alex always ends his set with *fly like an eagle. and just as me and my friend winta park our bikes outside i can hear the last bars of the track... damn.
so i miss the set but have a nice chat with winta and alex and before i know its home time so i can rest up for another marathon day.  saturday i try to hook up with the various londoners in town, but manage to be out of cync with all of them. then i make it through the rehearsal, and am half an hour late to meet my friends for the first club i'm meant to be at. and that kind of doesn't work out.

so we head over to 15 above the club weekend for the tetine set. and my friend deb is a little amazed by the concept of a club on the fifteenth floor of an office building. and there is q jumping  and people watching in the lift. we decide to check out the terrace and its freezing cold so they're giving out blankets, and we're looking over alexanderplatz, drinking cuba libres, playing some variation of truth or dare and cruising all the girls who walk by/over us in totally weather inapropiate dresses.

the next day my friend deb and i head over to mauer park in prenzlaur berg. first time i've made it out there since i moved here. eventually catch up with winta again who's with noemi. and the park is so summer it hurts. there is  a rock band, and a samba school, and random picnics, and random couples making out, and the flea market and random cafe's. and it makes me think that you would only get this kind of vibe in london if there was some kind of festival on. and i feel like a traitor instantly for thinking it.

yesterday, four guests left. show them all the almost final cut of notbar doc. really positive feedback. feels like a film now really, starting to consider sending it to festivals and not just screening randomlly here and there. finally get to hang out with my friend haje and his girlfriend elena. we meet up with thatf*kingsara and uta. have wonderful long dinner at cafe' v and talk about culture, gadgets, blagging, long distance relationships, and what makes butch girls hot. (you had to be there)

so this is my last week of random freeflow play time. next monday begins the chapter of daily german classes and importing footage for the online doc. so there may be less adventures. but then again... this is berlin, so maybe not...

shoreditch berlin mash up

really really random weekend. it started thursday. i spend hours at glasscube in mitte with some kind of drink subsidy* care of a bartender friend there. and its the first time the boys have seen me glammed up as i'm going to broken hearts club after. they don't join as they're not feeling the fashion/hipster party vibe. so i go to broken hearts club by myself about 3am. run into an actress i'll be in a short film with next month. she shows me another side of berlin. where pretty girls in cute dresses have drinks bought for them. she was seriously protective of me, and warm. introducing me to various people, telling everyone how beautiful she thought i was. really sweet girl. i hope we get to party again.

i have a really great chat with a random guy i meet through her, and he's super encouraging about my move here, really should have gotten his number. but then i'm distracted as i see a dj i know from london, cormac, so i go over and say hello. and he's spinning at this club in my neighborhood the next day. so we hang out, exchange numbers and sometime around four am my friend gemma shows up. so i don't leave until about half five.

friday i hide out in my studio. find these great stills of the notbar eviction through a random blog. get in touch with the girl and she's going to send them to me. really makes my day as i have no footage of that crazy morning of policemen, firemen, and the chilled out notbar crew. then i make it home, cycle out the door sometime after midnight. and i'm loving my kiez, and the fact that a five minute cycle takes me to a club. and that the club is totally hidden away. i get there and cormac is super friendly. he introduces me to his friend peter who also djing. both of their sets were blinding. totally thought i hated techno and minimal techno, but they broadened my horizons on that massivelly. crowd were really into it.

we leave and head to panorama bar, and hours later are restless again and get in a cab to go to club de visionaire, but its closed so we wander to the street and see some ravers, who tell us another club, arena is around the corner. so we go there, and it must be like 8 am. and then hours later we're back at my house. and then before it its the next day. try to get hold of thatfuckingsara but she doesn't pick up the phone. so its onwards and upwards to white trash, then some anarchist pizza place, then a private party at scala, then panorama bar, and when peter says we are heading to bar 25 after i'm kind of not feeling it. but we get there and its not so crowded you can't dance, and the crowd are less *zombie then they were the last time we were there. and i'm liking the music. and i run into maurice and then the boys from sameheadz

the whole weekend was this endless delicious blur of raving/talking/drinking with little sleep featuring. it was like having the best parts of shoreditch and berlin all at once. but the thing it really made me think about, is how you can move in the same scenes, live in the same areas, have mutual friends with someone, and really never get to meet them. and then suddenly in another city, context, it all makes sense. life operates on a random kind of logic i think. you never know when your paths really cross, but when its the right time its a tasty adventure...

Currently listening : What Else Is There? By Röyksopp Release date: By 2006-01-24

Two months down, ten to go

It's now  two months since I've been here.  I'm more and more attached to my bike (despite the fact i'm hemorrhaging cash on the old girl, the fact I can leave her out all night and she's still waiting for me makes me  like her more and more)  Meanwhile what little German I started to gain is slipping, taking classes feels more more urgent. The money situation is worse but then my sense of how to live on less is better.

I feel like without a day job to fight against,  I've lost a lot of discipline. I feel knocked back by not having a schedule or structure, and not having people around me who have schedule or structure.  I feel inspired by the city, in love with it a little, but also overwhelmed by it. But it is getting easier to set my own limits.  To say when I need to leave, to stay in my studio and work, to have an early night so I can work a full day the next day. But my achievements constantly seem a little lost in all I have to do, learn, sort out. For example that I still have to sign up for  German classes, for example the fact that I'm only now finishing the notbar doc, and haven't even begun to import any of the footage of the on line doc  since I've been here.

I know I have something, I know there is a reason new friends seem to want to keep hanging out, or to develop the friendship, or work with me creatively. But I do feel knocked back. By  the increasing pace of my fledgling but busy social life, by the stream of guests from out of town. And now that I have seriously derailed from the  serial monogamy track, I feel all sorts of other things.  this sense of having a relationship here being completely impossible because everyone is cruising and hooking up. Wanting a relationship here especially because it seems so impossible.  Not wanting it really because I know so well what those boys are like away from their girlfriends.

Feeling like I'm part of a group. A group of boys. Feeling like it would take years and years (if ever)    for me to really be part of it. Being surprised that my friends are truer friends than I think. Being disappointed that my friends are not friends in the way I'm used to.  Feeling special because I'm still relatively new in town. Feeling like my sell by date is soon as there is a constant stream of new girls in town.  Looking around me at the smug girls who have managed to score boyfriends and thinking I'm far too much of a party girl to achieve  their committed state.

Feeling at peace with my new sexual identity. Feeling like I have no sexual identity. Feeling like a straight girl who is bi in inverted commas and just cruises other straight girls and maybe  kisses them when we're both drunk and in a club with boys watching. Feeling like I fancy no girls on the girl scene. Feeling like a fake on the girl scene anyway. Feeling like straight sex isn't quite enough, feeling like lesbian sex isn't really either. Wanting sex all the time, getting it and wanting to step back from it for a while.

Currently I carry a myth in my head. The hot hipster boy who will look at me like I am the hottest coolest girl in the room. The boy whose arm I hang on smugly. The one who is so into me, he doesn't f**k around when I'm not there. And we're into the same music, and art and films. And we are as likely to go to a live gig as stay out all night at an after-hours.  I have no idea if he exists. But then I remember something my friend Uta said to me when I was flat hunting. That I didn't have to compromise, that I could find what I wanted but I would just have to be more patient...

At any rate, at this moment, I'm feeling all turned on by summer.    I'm enjoying the random flirting and playing, and  I'm way more interested in finishing these films and setting up this site than falling into a relationship.

Two months down, ten to go...We. Shall. See....

todays wisdom brought to you by david shrigley...

"Man’s life is essentially without meaning or purpose and human beings cannot really communicate. Existence is futile. Illogical and meaningless Art is the only worthwhile art. It will lead us to silence.

Now…

What the f&%k shall I wear…"

ich bin ein berliner

This city is crazy
This city is chilled out
This city never stops
This city can't be real
This city invented shiny disco balls
This city is reinventing...
                                                hedonism
                                                art
                                                culture
This city has a lot of great ideas
This city often never gets past talking about them...

This city inspires me
This city keeps me from getting any work done
This city is the dominant partner in this relationship
This city is skint
    but somehow has enough money for drink and drugs
This city is hooking up
This city is having an open relationship with itself
    (whether it knows it or not)
This city is an overused adjective
      (go on pick one....
                                           *cool
                                            *super
                                             *hot
                                              *schön
                                              *geil )

This city slowly gives me more german
This city slowly takes away my english
This city is wonderland
    (and i've already met the the mad hatter and the white rabbit, and i'm trying my best for people to stop relating to me as alice)

"people are so obsessed with having a plan, I believe sometimes you need to take a few different turns before you find your direction"  Andreas Grant

Its been almost two months... i've taken a lot of different turns.
i don't think any of them were *wrong... but i'm ready for a another direction...

just a thought..

there are those that have trouble saying yes, and those that have trouble saying no...

generally speaking, those that have trouble saying no, have better stories to tell...

blogging from berlin

yeah i know i know i've been slack. its not you its me. and its not like i havn't composed a thousand and one blogs in my head in the month i've been out here... (a month!!! holy f**k!!! i thought that living a life where i didn't have to clock in and out day after day, particularly in a city thats sooooooooooo chill, would make time pass slowly. but i find that actually even though i really have to think twice about what day, time, date, year it is here, time passes fast. whats that all about? but i digress.)

in my first week or two here i was bombarded with messages from london that seemed to expect, that given the nature i'm known fo,r i would conquer this city within days. (i.e. know everywhere worth going, have a ginormous network of friends and lovers, have a fabulous furnished flat in the center of things, finish my film and speak fluent german). all because i'm *social* and *clever* or something. but actually i spent a lot more time in than i could bring myself to admit, and a lot of time writing back to all those london messages. i loved being here but was wracked not quite with homesickness, but with a longing for my friends, and the swagger i have in london, the sense that i walk down the street knowing the city is mine and showing it.

it doesn't work like that here. but then i don't think i wanted it to. it was never going to be easy starting from scratch again, i think i forgot how hard it was the last time. but i'm happy with what progress i have made. i have finally found a place, and workspace, and though i struggle along with my german, i understand a bit more every day.   i have made a few true friends, who have been open and supportive to me in a way i'm more than a little touched by. and i am getting to know the city and feel like though i may not *own* it, its far more interesting at the moment feeling like i have so far to go to know it at all. and in my time when my phone truly never rang, i learned how to stay in, and to be by myself, which was something i had totally lost in london. i actually like staying in now. i also like going out, and i have no worries about becoming a hermit, but i do have a new sense of wanting to check myself on the social tip a bit. i don't want to be known as a party girl here. i don't want my life to revolve around my social life. i want to learn to say no sometimes.

and the most amazing thing about being here is how its changing me, and how i feel like i'm learning and being challenged every day. i'm losing traits about myself that i'm not sorry to see gone. i'm not chained to my diary, i feel less neurotic, its impossible to be a control freak with the ever changing nature of the city, and so i find myself more flexible, less restless. and less materialistic as well. i'm so much less maintenance on my appearance, which is actually really liberating.

  its good to have some kind of plan here, as its very very easy to get lost. but if you do have a plan you ahve to constantly be open to it changing. and that has to be a good thing. monday marks a new chapter. i'm setting up my edit suite finally! and i'm really looking forward to changing my rhythm yet again so i can get used to regularly working. and after that i will have to factor in german classes. which i am desperate to get on to. i feel excited and at peace with myself. london seems abstract. i think its going to be a great year..

dear notbar....

Dear notbar,

Thanks…for the memories. Most advise not to get back with an ex (and then do any ways) and ours was certainly an on and off again affair. I mean really. You just would not leave. You kept threatening the end, only to come back again. And weak as my resolve was, (as far as you were concerned) each time you called me back… I came again. I wanted to. I didn’t want to end either. Even when you clashed with my day job, even when you kept me from sleep, even when you kept willing me to people and things I should avoid, I found myself saying yes yes and yes again.

Ours was a tempestuous ongoing will it ever end kind of affair. I even tried to tempt you to join me in Berlin regardless of the destruction I knew you could enwrench on me there.  And I believed every single break up, despite your cry wolf status. But like the cigarette you kept perched in my mouth I was addicted to you and so every time you asked me to return, heedlessly I did… but now it really is the last goodbye, and now I think it really is best for us. Because I have things I have to do darling,. A life to be getting on with.

And I know that now that I can’t knock at all twilight hours at your door, worse still just push  in that doorway, in every state, with all manner and number of company when you would take me in with open arms. You and your peter pan sensibility, a boy (most definitely a boy, far too straight forward and constantly aroused to be a girl) who for so long refused to grow up, who maintained your childlike charm, who said why play the rules of the rest of the world when we can create our own fantasy and what little fun is growing up anyway.

You intoxicated me to the extent I sold your very ethos to others. And even if no one I brought to you got you in the way I did, I felt a small triumph with every smile ,every drink bought, every cigarette lit; every party that ended in your quarters because I, I had told my micro macro massive to come there.  But I am grateful you are finally stepping away. Because break up after break up there comes a time when you have to say hey, if we wont’ be together, if we can’t defy the day to day we must simply look back and say.. Hey… we WERE fucking great.

Please know this at least, I’ll miss you deeply, my wondrous lady-boy;.

Xxx s.