Sarah's journal August, 16 2017

Pigeon carcass on pavement this morning.

When Rorschach writes something similar, there is something poetic about it, although in a very dark way. At the very least reading it or hearing it spoken in the movie. But there is nothing at all poetic in reality.

Haven't eaten or drunk anything for the last 12 hours. Eating wasn't the problem. Even though after this time I did get a little bit hungry after all. What really annoyed me was not being allowed to drink because of the blood sampling. Because it was for an allergy test, I'm not even sure I really had to be sober at all this morning. The woman asked me, if it was for the allergy test. I told her yes and asked her, if there's a difference to other blood samplings. Of course, I thought immediately, stupid question. She confirmed to me then that other data would be checked.

Thought for a moment of going back home and writing to the city about the pigeon. Also thought of taking the pigeon and bringing it to the park like on New Year's Eve with the blackbird. Drove straight into the city in the end. Sometimes others don't matter, it seems. The pigeon was dead anyway and nothing that could have helped it. First got a bit of money, then to the bakery. Two Franzbroetchen (puffy pasty with cinnamon) and a hot chocolate. The bakery is in a shopping mall with lots of shops. At about 8:30 when I arrived the exit I wanted to take was still closed. A man who wanted to take that exit before me informed me that it was closed. So I took another way out and passed a contruction area. People already working there. With a noise volume that I turned off my mp3-player until I was half way down the escalators. I looked at the time scale of the mp3-player: 1 minute and 07 seconds. I hadn't heard a single note from “The Sound of Silence” by Disturbed although I had the volume full up. So much for the sound of silence, I though on the escalators.

On the middle floor a young woman was in front of me with a jacket that had in all capital letters “DON'T TALK TO ME” on her back. I resisted the temptation to tell her “I'm sorry”. She didn't seem aggressive in any way and was friendly enough to stay on that middle floor to have a smoke, unlike so many other people who go down to the smoking free area to smoke there. Not my style to start a talk with strangers.

Rorschach's Journal: October 12, 1985:

Dog carcass in alley this morning. Tire tread on burst stomach. The city is afraid of me. I have seen it's true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, “Save us!” and I'll whisper... “No.“

Porn

This is an entry I meant to write last year already, but didn't write. In January last year “The Revenant” came out with Leonardo DiCaprio. I haven't seen the movie. Although the movie is based on a true story, which usually interests me, it didn't interest me at that time. But I have noticed discussions about a scene or a moment in the movie. Namely a scene with a bear and that context there was talk about rape. In the end it just seems to come down to what could be called an inconvenient camera angle and nothing more. On English websites there were writings of “porn”. Carole Cadwalkadr wrote in her review for The Guardian even in the headline already “The Revenant is meaningless pain porn“ (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/17/revenant-leonardo-dicaprio-violent-meaningless-glorification-pain). German webistes as well mentioned the amount of violence in the movie. http://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/neu-im-kino-the-revenant-wuchtiger-kampf-ums-ueberleben.2150.de.html?dram:article_id=341768 used the word “Gewaltporno” (“violence porn”). Apart from the fact that I had little interest story-wise, the mass of violence, which reviews already focussed on a lot, was just another reason for me not to watch the movie. What puzzled me however was the word “porn” with all of this. A reference to the bear scene and with the connection of the amount of violence making it “pain porn” and “violence porn”?

I am one of those people who noticed Mark Gatiss rather late through “Sherlock”. Once I was searching the internet for pictures of him and found a website with a collection of pictures of his hands. “Hand porn”. I understand that someone is impressed, if not to say obsessed with another person. I too may like certain aspects of a person or I may not like them at all. But “hand porn”?

Dear me! I just typed in “food porn” on google to find a certain article again. There is an article on that on the English Wikipedia! Prefaced with the notion: “Not to be confused with Food and sexuality.“ The following headline from The Guardian a while ago made me think of the porn thing again, namely: “Unicorn lollies and six million avocados: our insatiable appetite for Instafood“. (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/aug/01/all-food-fit-to-instagram-have-we-reached-peak-food-porn-photography). I didn't find a picture of the unicorn lollies in the article, but it is about food and lately it seems that the word “porn” isn't far away. As it's the case in the article. I don't really get it. Maybe I'm just naïve or clueless. After all I'm one of the few people who don't have an account on Facebook, also I'm not on Instagram or Twitter or any of those other sites where everything is shared. Can somebody please enlighten me.

Maybe I'm thinking too negative about this or something. I don't know. But regarding sex I've watched a couple of documentaries. One was about young people with sick abnormal sexualities. Not criminal, but not normal either. I remember a young man in that context who saw a young woman while driving in the car and he had to stop and left the film crew for a short while to go to the toilet and shortly after that he came back again and I think he even excused himself at the film crew. He was very aware that this wasn't normal behaviour and I think he felt sorry about that. I felt sorry for him. Another program was about teenagers, sexuality and porn. With the internet children and teenagers have easy and unnoticed access to porn and “sex movies”. Such movies, the teenagers told openly, are shared with others, too. Someone in the documentary made the comment that shaving, for example of the legs of a woman and also young girls has its roots in porn. They shave for such movies for a good view. I didn't see it that way until then. Certainly that's not a thought most women have when they shave today.

Back in my school time a company would drive me to school and back home again. I remember when I was in my final years the drivers and boys on the drive were talking about women and girls they saw on the street. Words like “Schlampe” (“slut” or “bitch”) were used. Not always, not necessarily weekly even. But regardless the fact that I was a young woman and present with them, the word was used freely. In English the word “bitch” is equally freely used for a certain type of women or also girls. On the other hand there's also time and again discussions if a victim of rape may have provoked this act because of their behaviour or their clothings.

What does that mean for our society and it's progression? I'm getting the word “sexualisation” in my head. But I don't get any further than that with my thoughts. I don't understand it. Can't the encounter of a bear not simply be the encounter of a bear? Can't hands and food simply be hands and food? I don't think I like this progression. Maybe only because I don't understand it. Maybe because I really don't like it.

Comments more than welcome. I think I'm open and I would like to understand more.

I don't like rain - yes, I do like it

There are sayings around the topic that not circumstances or situations are bad, but what's important is how we deal with them and perceive them. That sounds good and nice. Sometimes it's easier said than done. It's true though.

Last Wednesday it was hot and the postman complained. I told him that now everyone complains that it's too hot, but next time it's cold and wet again, everyone will complain again. This time that it's too cold and wet. I told him that I'd like it to be cooler, but don't like wet much. He said, he likes wet.

Thursday the cooling came and I had to go to work in the rain. I do not like umbrellas, because you've got 1) something in your hand and don't have it free and 2) what do I do with a wet umbrella? I prefer a wet jacket and hands free from umbrellas, dry or wet. Accordingly my jacket got wet on the way from my place to the train station. I had pulled my hood over the head. On the train I pulled the hood back off my head.

When I arrived at the stop at work, the rain hadn't stopped yet. Out of a somewhat strange feeling I didn't pull the hood back over my head. My hair got wet and suddenly I didn't care. No, it wasn't that I didn't care. It was good. I had been wrong on Wednesday. The rain got my hair wet. Inconvenient, since my hair curls up with a bit of natural curls I've got. It looks messy. Also no opportunity to dry the hair reasonably and fast either. At least I've got short hair.

I thought of someone in a movie, who over time has quite many scenes in which he gets more or less wet from rain. Sometimes he's got a hat. More than once he's got nothing to protect his head and hair. I thought of the actor and his character and the rain was suddenly perfectly fine and good. Strange how a simple mental connection can change the feelings for a situation.

No, I won't reveal which movie, actor or character I had in my head. That will stay my little secret. It's my connection anyway. If you don't like rain, you should find your own connection to make it likable. It can be liberating.

Bombs

During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday I dreamed of bombs. I was in a house or flat and cowering at a wall and I could hear bombs falling outside. The dream was dragging on. Sometimes I did something else and had almost forgotten the bombs, because none had fallen anymore. But then the next ones came. That repeated itself several times. Nothing more happened in that dream. The building where I had been never got hit. I don't remember anymore if I had looked outside a window. In reality I probably would have stayed away from windows, because of the danger of bursting glass. Although a bomb fire is much worse, of course than flying glass pieces.

In the morning I checked my e-mail inbox and only read the first headline of the e-mail from The Guardian. It seemed like North Korea has launched missiles ((The Guardian today: North Korea missile test a 'new threat to world', says US amid show of military force: North Korea missile test a 'new threat to world', says US amid show of military force). A test. Great. Especially after my dream.

As I was waiting for the train, there was a proverb on the screen. Proverbs first are shown in pictures, before showing it in writing at the end. This morning had: “to break a butterfly with a wheel”. In German it's literally: to shoot with cannons on sparrows.” Cannons are not bombs, but it's kind of close.

A co-worker told me on our way to work that she had heard on the radio this morning that 2 bombs were about to be disposed today in our city.

A somewhat “bomb loaded” week this one...

I will wear my t-shirt tomorrow, which I obviously have bought almost 2 years ago: “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity” (A probably valueless statement).

Cherries

One of our assistant doctors has a cherry tree (actually his father) and he already came the past days with cherries. I told him I'd take a larger amount from him to make jam from it. Of course he'll get a jar, too.

Today he brought me a basket full. I weighed it at home. Basket and cherries: 10.1 kg (22.3 stone).

A very dear colleague helped me getting the basket to the park deck and called a cab from the main entrance to me. It was easiest that way, especially since it's been raining on and off today. A few steps from the cab to my apartment weren't that difficult.

I took a couple of hand full and put them in the kitchen sink, added water and washed them. Then taking off the stems. Of course the stones had to go, too. I don't have any tool to do that and I used the easiest thing to do it in the end: my fingers. Before I really got started, I had the idea to change my grey t-shirt for an older orange one. Good idea. Before I placed everything in a meaningful way, the floor was the first to get some drips, followed by the wall, my t-shirt and my fingers, of course.

I wondered, if larger amounts of blood than just a simple cut would stain that much, too. I discarded the thought of asking one of our doctors though when it occurred to me that they are using gloves during surgeries.

Question: Why do doctors wear gloves during surgery?

Answer: So they don't leave fingerprints.

Actually I thought about Rorschach from Watchmen while taking the stones out. The Comedian gets killed. He's got a badge with a yellow smiley. The smiley gets a distinctive blood stain during the killing. The smiley, changed that way, is one of the most famous signatures for both the book and the movie. Although the smiley from the movie is stained a bit different from the book. Rorschach finds the smiley and goes to his colleague (may we say friend?) Daniel Dreiberg with it. Daniel is not at home, so Rorschach effectively just breaks into the home and also eats a can of baked beans. When Daniel arrives, Rorschach shows him the smiley, which leads to the following dialogue:

Rorschach: Daniel, look at this.

Daniel Dreiberg: Is this bean juice?

Rorschach: Human bean juice. Badge belonged to the Comedian. Blood, too. He's dead.

Knock knock!

Guy comes into my office this morning and goes, "Knock knock!" So of course I answer with, "Who's there?" But he in return just goes, "Company shredding." I'm not even sure, if "Shredding" is the name of the company that shreds the sensible data we store in boxes or whether he meant to say that he is from the company that comes to collect the sensible data from our box for shredding. He seemed happy and in a good mood, but he wasn't exactly on the ball.

I wrote that to a couple of friends. Two of them wrote back asking what I had expected. Well, something clever or funny. The other day for example I read something in English that I found quite funny and unusual:

Knock knock
Who's there?
Little old lady.
Little old lady who?
I didn't know you could yodel.

I wasn't on the ball myself though. I should have told him that he should think of something to reply for the already hinted Knock knock joke.

Do you know any good Knock knock jokes? Write them in the comments!

Midnightsnack

I'm laying in bed and should have been asleep a long time ago. Should have been in bed a long time ago. The light is out and a humming starts. The unmistakable humming of a mosquito. 'You've got to be kidding me', I'm thinking and turn the light beside the bed back on. No joke. A mosquito. Still flying at the bed in the corner. The very corner where the spider is, too, although without a visible web. The spider goes to the mosquito, but doesn't quite get it. Turns instead to some other tiny flying creatures that came in through the window drawn in by the light. I help the spider a bit and blow the mosquito just once away from me and towards the spider. Now the spider gets it. It weaves the web around the mosquito. I turn the light out again. Only once I hear a soft humming from the mosquito. Then it's quiet.