- The two percussionists in the symphony orchestra at the AGV Munich. They moved their heads with the beat and especially the Asian guys facial expressions were pure comedy.
- Coming home to a bottle of cold orange lemonade when you're really really thirsty.
- The word mercurial.
- Alt-J - 3WW (I hated it at first but after listening to it a few times I now think it's awesome) / Kendrick Lamar - i (that dude is amazing - I know, it took me long enough to notice)
- Girls at library - About women who read, for women who read.
- Ktinka's travel writing.
- An article about exploring our interior worlds with the help of literature.
- Getting the old box of photographs from the basement. Feeling an urge to start taking photos with an analogue camera again. Taking shots of the photos with the phone and sending out old memories to friends.
- My birthday party, playing foosball at Flex (and running into my neighbour on the way home who gave me a very passionate birthday kiss) and inviting everyone over to my place on Friday - making watermelon margaritas, listening to Nina Hagen records, ordering huge quantities of pizza.
- I lost three people in May. No one died or anything but we went our seperate ways. Which is a really bad thing, although, it always has a positive side, too. I was brave enough to break up with someone for the first time (after experiencing 2014 in reverse). And I told my ex-boyfriend how unbelievably shitty he treated me. I am getting stronger.
- That One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. The most georgeous and enchanting graphic novel I have EVER read.
- My balcony. I spend most of my free time out there ever since I got that cheap deck chair from IKEA. It has a neon-yellow pattern, my umbrella is yellow, too (but I only get it out in the worst heat) and this month the tree in the garden sported the most beautiful yellow flower cascades which were glowing in the evening light.
- Listening to the big ice cubes crackling in my freshly made Bailey's on ice (a drink I had entirely forgotten about until somebody brought a bottle to my birthday party - I actually love it with some ice and a dash of mineral water to make it less saccharine).
- On a Wednesday, I got stomach cramps / gall problems during art class in the afternoon so I had to spend a good part of that lesson hovering over the wash basin. Doris took care of my students and some girls drew big Get-well-soon posters for me! Grateful (even though I almost fainted on my way home from all the pain).
- There was an election for the new guidance counselors / Verbindungslehrer at the end of May. So many of my pupils voted for me and were really disappointed when somebody else got the job (which is not surprising at all since this is my first year at the school and most students don't know me). And yet I found out that I've actually got a small fanclub. Feels good!
- More school-related joy: I had to cover a lesson for somebody and went outside with the class. Some played football, some sat around on the tartan track studying. A couple actually lay down hugging, their heads in the chemistry worksheets. So cute those two. I was able to grade some English tests surrounded by hundreds of daisies. Very pleasant.
- Magnum Double Peanutbutter
- Getting to know Zara, Kilian's cat. She's beautiful and SO SOFT.
- Visiting Shlee and Kil. Playing CAH, sitting on Oma's balcony with a nice dinner. But the best thing: I got to have my open air swimming pool premiere at the Waldfreibad in Dinkelscherben. Idyllic sport with a great view!
- The concept of stage whisper.
- Cars in that new gray tone which looks like opaque white (the stuff that comes with your set of school watercolours) mixed with a dash of black.
- My first real non-stick frying pan. Adulting!
- I love Donna Tartt. Yes, you heard right. Love. Adore. Admire. I come across so many beautiful words and expressions in her texts, like stage whisper, or 'turn of the century', which has a nice ring to it. It's hard to explain. "Harriet's mother did not often talk of Libby - she could hardly pronounce Libby's name without breaking down in tears - but her thoughts ran towards Libby most of the time, and their current was as plain as if she spoke them aloud. Libby was everywhere. Conversations turned about her, even though her name went unmentioned. Oranges? Everyone remembered the orange slices Libby liked to float in Christmas punch, the orange cake (a sad dessert, from a World War II ration cookbook) that Libby sometimes baked. Pears? Pears too were rich in associations: Libby's gingered pear preserves; the song that Libby sang about the little pear tree; the still life, featuring pears, that Libby had painted at the state college for women at the turn of the century. And somehow - in talking wholly about objects - it was possible to talk about Libby for hours without mentioning her name. Unspoken reference to Libby haunted every conversation; every country or color, every vegetable or tree, every spoon and doorknob and candy dish was steeped and distempered with her memory - and though Harriet did not question the correctness of this devotion, still sometimes it felt uncomfortably as if Libby had been transformed from a person into a sort of sickly omnipresent gas, seeping through keyholes and under the doorcracks." The Little Friend by Donna Tartt, p.419f I started reading The Little Friend on a plane to Riga and continued turning the pages lying at the beach, standing in a swimming pool on Phu Quoc Island. It has got a "Southern Gothic Vein", according to the Daily Mail, and makes me dream of childhood, hot and seemingly endless summers, the drama, of everything I never understood until much later.
may 7 2017 ∞
jun 25 2017 +