I’m such a loser for posting old stories and pretend that they are brand new. I’m finding it hard to reconnect with my older writing personality. I’m in no writer’s block; it’s just that I’ve realized that my way of expressing myself in English used to be better than it is now. So whatever I write seems to lack of the quality that I once was used to. If it wasn’t work, I would be reading every single day. Three to four books a week like I was used to. I need to print out this Stephen King quote and pin it to the wall.

I have no money for Dublin, since Ryanair has canceled its cheap flights to Dublin for this summer. Now I’m looking for a hotel room in a quiet German city. Suggest something? I just need to get away for a while with my head and learn to sleep with lights off again. I was thinking of Lübeck, but I’m not sure, yet. I wonder what the beach is like in April.

When I first entered the waiting room at my doctor’s last week, I suffered from a little social anxiety. Also when waiting for a friend at the Hamburger train station. It’s something that happens often when I have to wait in the midst of a crowd. I don’t wear eye-catching clothes, but still they stare and I get nervous.

There’s something not right at the core of my…of my…you know what. Whenever a person infuriates me, I simply take a deep breath, count to five and exhale. Then I feel better and worse at the same time. This has been going on for months now and I’m beginning to understand the violence in my dreams. Recently I see a lot of warning signs in my dreams, but I can never remember what’s written on them. They were written with blood, so uhm, I guess it’s nothing pleasant. Am I close to starting a massacre? Or close to breaking someone’s nose and knee caps? Don’t be ludicrous.
This might only happen if I come across this person again. I feel uncomfortable, because in German we say “Man trifft sich zweimal im Leben”, meaning you’ll meet the same person twice in your life. It hit me like Sisyphus’ rock! First time you meet you get to know each other. The second time you’ve learnt about his/her person and you’ll know better. And God, how much I know better. So many nights I wake up burning up and notice how little I’ve breathed; the body dehydrating.

I’m getting sick with my bosses telling me how beautifully calm I am with everything, as if I was a power Buddhist. Those are moments where I would love to slap them and say “By the way, this is me, in case you haven’t noticed.” But sometimes it’s better to let those people believe what they already believe. There’s no point in changing it. It’s not that they’ve done anything to you, have they?

I never asked the boy out by the way. I don’t think it would have been right anyway. I won’t regret it either.

You know what’s funny? When boyfriend finds out that girlfriend cheats on him, he’d beat up the other man. But if girlfriend finds out that boyfriend cheats on her, she’d beat up her boyfriend. The man doesn’t let anyone intrude into his territory and the woman feels that her territory isn’t good enough. It sounds like it’s always the man’s fault then. I’m so tired of this, even though I’d felt the same for almost four years. If you have lived all your life with low self esteem, you seriously don’t need a person that makes you feel even less worthy than you already feel.  But this has absolutely nothing to do with the gender. There are men who were women in their past lives and women who were men. So there you go, we’re quite even.

I’m getting sick of my blog entries again. But to be honest, I’m too lazy and busy to answer your emails at the moment. I need to concentrate on my four life goals. The path is long and I feel old already, especially with this inflamed kidney and irritable bowel.

Kiss me goodnight. Haven’t kissed in a year, that’s so sad. 5th and still counting till it feels right. I only just noticed they had all been good night kisses. Though I’d never slept well after.

She got off bed at 7am. Awake since three and everything packed since four. She had spent the remaining three hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling whilst he was asleep. Numb, counting his breaths every minute like she used to do with her dog as a little girl. At the same time thinking about the past, future and God and everything she had lived for, which after all had come to an end. A person’s mind grows old and dries out like a withered leaf on a cold autumn day. It was autumn – the end of a story. The last chapter that yet seemed endless and uncertain, but Nothingness was justified. She looked at herself in the mirror and slowly took off her ring, then her ear rings and bracelet. The wardrobe was open and she could see her favorite dress that he had bought for her birthday. It used to emphasize her waist and hips in an attractive way. However she shoved it aside and grabbed for her black hoodie in the far back and some ordinary jeans that she had not worn in a long time; less attractive, but at least comfortable. After she had cleaned her teeth, she put the tooth brush and her lip balm into her bag.
When she was ready, she looked at him once again, as if she had never seen him before.
She got onto the bus as everyone else did and began to count the rest of her changes that she had in her pocket. The bus drove past the local church where she got married and the supermarket she used to go to almost regularly to buy her lunch for work, because she hated preparing lunch herself, just like she hated anything that cost a lot of time. Nevertheless, it didn’t mean anything anymore. Time was over. As she searched through her heavy bag, she found a copy of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which she had never managed to finish reading and never would, so she put it underneath her seat apathetically. Also there was a small bottle of eau de toilette, which she chucked into the bin beside her. A middle aged lady looked into the bin and then at her. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the lady to grab it, but she would do it eventually. Sad bitch.
As she arrived at the train station she noticed that her mobile phone was vibrating at the bottom of her bag. Feeling disgusted, she threw it on the floor and stamped on it without looking at who was calling. That sudden outbreak of anger had caught a few people’s attention. Immediately she walked towards the platforms and threw a quick glimpse at the screen, looking at all the departures, but still uncertain of where to go. Lastly she decided for the small town Tonopah, because there weren’t as many people getting on the train. Just do it don’t think. So she bought herself a ticket, leaving herself only fifty-five cents to maybe buy water with. The train would first stop at Rhyolite, a so-called ghost town. But her destination was Tonopah, as she was thinking about the Tonopah Test Range, which was a military installation, where people launch rockets and undertake free-fall experiments. Or maybe a donkey would lead her to some gold. On the train she carried on emptying her bag. There was a nail file, photographs from the past. Next she cracked her ID card in two and placed everything underneath her seat.
A lump began to develop in her throat and she began to shiver. Her eyes were filling up with tears and she was clenching fists with a raging manner. She locked herself up in the bathroom and collapsed on the floor, crying in pain. It was troublesome for her to gasp for breath whilst sniveling like a hurt little girl. It felt like she had severely injured herself that she was not able to get up anymore. Suddenly the choking feeling was gone.
She looked around her and had visualized the toilet, toilet paper and a slightly wet floor; the tiles were octagon-shaped, blue and dirty. She got up listlessly by holding on to the wash basin. The mirror in front of her represented eyes that indicated a lack of sleep, colorless lips with little wrinkles in the corner and uncombed hair hanging down her face.
The train got to Tonopah station in the late afternoon. It was a small town, but luckily she had met a truck driver who was planning to drive across the Great Basin Desert on Highway 95 and he was ready to take her with him. The view presented an assemblage of dry plants, salty-looking valley soils and mountains that made you think of thirst and carcasses. Both of them heard a noise that sounded like an explosion from far away, but they ignored it. It had become fairly dark and slightly cool. Suddenly she saw a bright flicker in the sky that looked like the glimmer of a satellite or even a moving star. Please just let me get off here, she said. He looked at her as if she was crazy. It’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s a gas station another five miles…, he said. However, she insisted on getting off and he let her.
She wondered off into the desert following that glimmer in the sky with dreamy eyes and suddenly tripped over a prickly plant. She fell on her face and without even perceiving the pain she started laughing about her own clumsiness. Afterwards she noticed that her leg was injured, as one side of her jeans was running dark. But she couldn’t stop laughing hysterically. Curiously she rolled over, so that she could observe the sky again. Then her laughter had weakened into a delirious chuckle. Beautiful firefly. Her chuckle had ultimately backtracked to the previous demented laugh, as the firefly was getting bigger and bigger.

Paula Cheung  2007

I’ve decided that when I read a foreign book, I will read it in English, too, instead of in German. I hate reading German so much lately (except for Martin Suter). German sentences are twice as long as necessary. It was a pain in the arse reading The Alchemist a few weeks ago. First, it sounded like such a wonderful story, but I almost fell asleep in the library. I’ve sort of lost patience with language that is too formal. Ian McEwan is an exception and all the writers from the early 19th hundred. Unfortunately reading is no fun after work, because after work reading has the effect of a sleeping pill.  It helps you to calm down and once you’re calm, you just want to rest your eyes and mind. That’s terrible. There’s so much to do!

Besides I’ve changed my mind sort of. I didn’t like The Alchemist that much. I’d rather have Coelho tell me something that I didn’t know already. And honestly, I didn’t really buy much of his point of view. It’s similar to all those books about the search for luck. It’s always about luck. I picked up a book by Dalai Lama – “We aspire for luck…” I simply don’t buy that anymore. All of them seem to be talking about positive thinking – come on, people! The good sides of you aren’t all of you. If you want your good sides to emerge you first need to awaken the worst in you (try love or hate or both). Your life is about getting to know yourself. And of course you need “people” to poke at you. Then, all you have to do is react. That’s life to me anyways. It’s not about being good. Nothing is good. Anything that can change isn’t good.
Stop making me sick with all this crap.

This year’s February isn’t taking a good start at all. I didn’t even notice that January had already packed its bags and left. No kiss goodbye – nothing. Have you ever experienced anything as rude as that? Well, so far, February has robbed money out of my purse, given me no flowers on Valentine’s (as usual) and instead is has set the tiger on me. My Chinese horoscope says that I need to keep focused on my plans, because the tiger is an inconsiderate bastard. I’d noticed weeks ago already when the ox had simply pissed off. What a chicken.

Oh solitude where are you when I need you the most? Why do I have to talk so much? Sometimes I feel that all the customers can sense this stress within me; this impatience indicating that I want to escape, because I don’t give a shit about them.

I watched The Painted Veil the other day and it really does justify my point of view. If a man hurts you, you leave him. If you hurt your man and he forgives you, then he is the one. I am in love, but I am not sure whether I’m just fooling around with myself. I know that person feels exactly the same as I do. There is only one thing that stands between us.

I am mentally on a journey. I always have been. And he’s still sailing the seven seas of my imagination.

Sunshine and a lot of salt.

I, I, I….