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Es werden Posts vom 2013 angezeigt.

Christmas Gifts

I got great stuff for christmas and I wanna tell you about it, so you can try to borrow them from me or, else, get them for yourself. First of all I got a new cell phone, which I didn't really want, but my life is crowded by some people, who believe, a new cell phone is a MUST. Especially if your old one is mostly good for texting and using it as a little mirror to correct your make up. Which mine was. Even the texting thing wasn't exactly going too well anymore. I mean, I could send text messages o.k., but when I received them, and it was too bright out there (bright meaning basically everything but pitch black), I had to go into a very dark entrance hall, which we have plenty here in Berlin, or I read them at home (which was a hassle whenever I knew, something important, for example considering the kids, was coming my way) Then I had to stick my head inside my purse, along with the cell phone, and read in there. Which frankly, was still totally o.k. for me. I much rather wan

every truth is always personal

theoretically I am already twenty years ahead I am already where I want to be seriously there is so much stillness in my future I don’t even notice the blabbering in my brain anymore and I could swear it is gone and everything difficult has been unknotted if I can keep breathing – in, out, in, out, I might actually get there and not just in my head my body could follow, easily there might be a miracle waiting for me how I entangle myself in the endless layers of hope, though, over and over, in selfishness - hope is always selfishness too, though I know better, at least most of the time, in my head I basically know everything, I am not exaggerating! well anyway: it remains an amazing miracle, why somebody knowing basically everything, behaves like somebody who knows nothing up and down I jump the always same stairs in between knowing, that nothing really is about me, or ever was about me - glimpses of truth            

Joachim Meyerhoff - Wann wird es endlich wieder so, wie es nie war

"...Ich muss Euch etwas beichten. Wenn ich im Stehen pinkele, kann ich meinen Schwanz nicht mehr sehen." Meine Brüder und ich schrien auf. Das taten wir immer, wenn mein Vater etwas Derartiges von sich gab. Wir schüttelten uns und spielten Ekel und Entsetzen. Meine Mutter rollte mit den Augen und sagte: "Womit wir wieder beim Thema wären." Mein Vater war ein Meister darin, aus jedem Gegenstand etw as anzügliches zu machen. Keine Gurke, keine Zucchini, die er sich nicht vor den Hosenstall hielt. ...Wenn meine Mutter auf dem Wochenmarkt zu dem hakennasigen Händler sagte: "Sie haben aber schöne große Eier heute!" rannen meinem Vater tagelang, sobald er nur daran dachte, vor Lachen die Tränen über seine Hamsterbacken."  Joachims Vater ist Arzt und Direktor - letzteres von einer großen Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie in Schleswig, auf deren Gelände, sozusagen mittendrin, in einer schmucken Villa, Joachim mit seinen Eltern und seinen beiden älteren Brüdern

december

under the full moon in the middle of spring I found within myself alone and wrapped in beautiful thoughts and wrapped             I admit it: in dreams, so unreal, so ethereal a reservoir of feelings unbeknownst to me they opened my heart from the centre of your neverending pain you ran up to the edge of the meadow over the hill the clouds overhead looking like swans travelling to neverland           remember: clouds are not the sky             which remains forever unchanged             by their endless formations untouched by every change will the sky be always the sky - blue and deep will your pain be always your pain - deep and dark              swans do love differently they never leave their mates only death can bring separation you throw yourself into the water which is cold colder than you expected but you are used to pain of all kinds (pain of the unexpected) they are your home you are

Diary Slam (1) 2 Stunden später: bin immer noch stoned!

Heute hörte ich im Radio , dass es Diary Slams gibt. Da lesen die Leute nicht Gedichte, sondern aus ihren alten Tagebüchern öffentlich vor. Es gibt offensichtlich bereits eine Szene und sogar ein Buch, das heißt Ich glaube, ich bin jetzt mit Nils zusammen . Allein der Titel ist so gut, er könnte locker aus einem meiner Tagebücher stammen, nur dass ich keinen Nils kannte. Die Betonung bei dem Ganzen liegt wirklich auf "alt". Fünfunddreißigjährige lesen aus den Tagebüchern vor, die sie als Vierzehnjährige voll geschrieben haben, vermischtes aus der Teeniezeit sozusagen. Es ist unangebracht, da sein Tagebuch aus dem letzten Jahr anzuschleppen. Denn das wäre vermutlich selbstmitleidig und todernst. O.k., das sind die aus der Teeniezeit auch, nur dass man dazu (hoffentlich) mittlerweile soviel Abstand hat, dass man die Komik in der Tragik erkennt und zu schätzen weiß. Es gibt mittlerweile Tagebuch-Lesebühnen (so heißen sie wirklich! obwohl ich zugebe, dass ich mir dieses tolle

Americanah - A novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

""It's real literature, the kind of human story people will read in two hundred years," she said. "You sound just like my mother", he said." Reading this book gave me many moments of pure joy, because Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a marvellous writer. Her prose is beautiful and once I've started, it's been hard for me to stop reading. Words simply flowing off the page into my heart and mind. The story is wonderful too, not to mention the characters. I would love to meet them all in person. Not once during the long journey from Nigeria to New York to Philadelphia to Baltimore to Princeton to New Haven to London and back to Nigeria did I feel lost. The story and the characters are so closely woven into a convincing and beautiful pattern, that the reader is instantly at home in this and never gets lost (which I find a rare quality in books today-even books I like a lot, lose me at times, because the story loses pace  or the characters are not

Meine korrigierte Buchwunschliste - weil Weihnachten jetzt wirklich nicht mehr überraschend kommt

...zumal ich hier mitten im ersten Schneesturm der Saison sitze, was ein ganz guter Hinweis darauf ist, dass man mit dem Kaufen der Weihnachtsgeschenke jetzt mal langsam loslegen könnte.  Ich musste meine Liste nochmal korrigieren, weil bereits ein paar Bücher davon bei mir gelandet sind, auf mysteriös verschlungenen Wegen - oder auch, weil mir welche begegnet sind, die mich noch mehr interessieren und die unbedingt auf die Liste mussten. Lasst Euch inspirieren und verschenkt ruhig ein paar Bücher zu Weihnachten! Großmann, David,  Aus der Zeit fallen  (ein Mann verliert seinen Sohn und drückt seine Trauer darüber aus) T.C: Boyle, San Miguel  (starting a new life on a tiny island; also mentioned  here ) Marissa Pessl,  Night Film  (thriller, a journalist becomes obsessed with the death of a young prodigy) Katharina Hartwell, Das fremde Meer  (zehnmal die Geschichte von Jan und Marie) Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of all Things  (about Alma, looking for truth with immense pat

100 bemerkenswerte Bücher - Die New York Times Liste 2013

Die Zeit der Buchlisten ist wieder angebrochen und ich bin wirklich froh darüber, weil, wenn ich die mittlerweile 45 Bücher gelesen habe, die sich um mein Bett herum und in meinem Flur stapeln, Hallo?, dann weiß ich echt nicht, was ich als nächstes lesen soll. Also ist es gut, sich zu informieren und vorzubereiten. Außerdem sind die Bücher nicht die gleichen Bücher, die ich im letzten Jahr hier  erwähnt hatte. Manche sind die gleichen, aber zehn davon habe ich gelesen, ich habe auch andere gelesen (da fällt mir ein, dass ich in den nächsten Tagen, wenn ich dazu komme, ja mal eine Liste der Bücher erstellen könnte, die ich 2013 gelesen habe, man kann ja mal angeben, das tun andere auch, manche richtig oft, ständig, so dass es unangenehm wird und wenn es bei mir irgendwann so ist, möchte ich nicht, dass Ihr es mir sagt, o.k.?),  und natürlich sind neue hinzugekommen. Ich habe Freunde, die mir Bücher unaufgefordert schicken, schenken oder leihen. Ich habe Freunde, die mir Bücher aufgeford

November

to believe in miracles in the idea that things you really want to happen will happen mist covering the city everything wet though it is not raining you have to be open to be afraid of death ultimately means to be afraid of life it is November                                   after all what kind of miracle get real could possibly happen in November? clothes covering people in layers upon layers until Christmas there will be no people left, just clothes carrying bags with gifts and rain or snow what kind of miracle could happen in November of course one wants to withdraw totally from everything to become human again in the depth of ones own thinking people really cover me in layers upon layers of bad feelings between November and March if you can keep your heart open even in November even under all those layers of clothes of wetness of mist of bad feelings (I saw you in November I did not look at you

My friend Sheridan Hill

is a wonderful person I have met about 18 or so years ago during a creative writing workshop in New Mexico. It actually took place on Ghost Ranch, the former home of Georgia O'Keeffe and was taught by Natalie Goldberg. I adored Natalie Goldberg at the time. And I must say, I've learned a lot from her in regard to just writing, keeping my pen moving, filling one notebook after the other. I learned there to trust my own voice. What intrigued me most though wasn't Natalie, but Sheridan, who got really really excited about everything I wrote there. I was german. I just dared writing in english, just like I still do, and she gave me sooo much positive feedback. We have been in touch ever since, though we actually never ever met again in person. Sometimes we exchange our writing, we comment on our blogs or just tell each other, what is going on in our lifes. She still is a writer and besides writing her own stuff, she does biographies for people, who can hire her. Just recent

These trees drive me crazy - a text about aging

"You think that it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one. they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else." from Winter Journal by Paul Auster (his is the translation of a text I wrote in January 2013 in german, it is not a verbal translation, but it is as close as I could get with my english) A few weeks ago I had to sneeze while getting dressed in the early morning, and suddenly I couldn’t really move anymore without suffering the gravest pain. Something had snapped in my body. Something that felt like an electric shock and it shot into my lower back and sent more and more little electric shocks into my right leg. Walking became a sort of limping, while I basically dragged my right leg behind. I dragged myself down our very long hallway to the bathroom by simultaneously trying to hold on to the walls with both h