God, what's the time? I can't sleep the entire day, I have loads of shit to do today. Okay, I don't really want to do it all, but I should. Dammit, where's my watch? I always leave it on the desk next to the bed. Come on, I didn't have THAT many beers with Rolf yesterday. Sheesh. Get up and search for it, then. Oh. Erection. I didn't notice that. Hope no one in the block across the street is watching. Brrr...it's cold. I have to turn the heating up one of these days. Starting to creep down towards zero now. Now where did I put that clock? Did I take it off while I brushed my teeth? No, it wasn't in the bathroom. Screw that, go back to the comfy warm bed before I freeze my balls off....not to mention my wilting erection. Ah, finally. 07:15. It had dropped down off the desk and wedged itself between the desk and the bed. Seven is too early to get up. I'm staying here until....when do they open? Nine? I'm here at least until eight thirty, then. Yeah. Over an hours worth. Should I do something about that erection? It's still semi-hard. Nah. Too tired, too cold, too....asexual at the moment. Besides, it wasn't an erection that came from arousal. It's just my dick standing out, displaying how much blood that is currently not circulating around in my brain. Sometimes, your cock is just a normal organ, regardless of its state. Other times, usually in close proximity to hot women......wait, let's be honest here... even bad looking women have given me erections. If you're drunk enough, anything will provoke a cockstand. Female bartenders, regardless of their appearance, can make any intoxicated straight guy fall in love with them, and even some gay ones. There's something incredibly sexy about the woman that provides you with alcohol. Not that it has to be a woman, of course. If you had trained a dog to fetch you beers from the fridge, you'd love that dog after the first six bottles. It'd give you a cockstand after twelve (only if it was a bitch of course. Real men aren't aroused by male dogs. What are you, a freak?). After fifteen, the fridge would be empty and you would be angry as hell at the dog because it wasn't bringing you anymore beer, so you'd throw it out of the house and make it sleep outside in twenty degrees below minus. You hate the ones that won't bring you beer.
Mmmmhmm.. I drifted off again. Didn't even make up my mind whether to whack off or not before I fell asleep. How late is it? 08:45 ? Ah, the office is open throughout the day. I'm taking another half hour. Only a half hour, though. Can't sleep the whole day away. I have things to do, people to see and borders to cross. And miles to go before I sleep.......again.
Urgh. Nine, fifteen. Getting up on pure guilt, while my body is screaming "more, more, more.....sleeepppp." I talk it down from instant declaration of war to a tentative ceasefire. I think it was the promise of half an hour under the shower that did it. Yeah. My body loves showers. No jokes about golden showers please. I can't handle snide remarks about freakish sexual behaviour before noon. And even after noon, you have to make me excited about the premise first. Don't just go all debauchery on me all of a sudden; talk to me, make me excited about the prospect. Tell me that you'll promise to cuddle afterwards and still respect me in the morning. Anyway, where were we?
So....first, the Amt für öffentliche Ordnung, which is what the Germans like to call their department of civil service. An entire building, solely dedicated to the noble art of queuing. There are animals with shorter pregnancies than the average time of a queue in the Amt. Like.....elephants...... or whales. This only enforces my atheistic view of the world; if there's a heaven, I bet it largely consists of queuing a lot. Why, you ask? Because it's for all of eternity, right? And whenever I stand in a queue, it feels like an eternity. So instead of actually filling up a nice, comfortable heaven with an ever-increasing number of people, I bet they just have people stand around in queues for like two hours, and then they throw them out again. After two hours, which feels like one and a half eternity, you're just glad to leave. You don't care anymore. Hell? Does it have queues? No? I'm there, dude. And all that space in heaven that is now freed up? Time-share condos. Then you can split the profits between the seraphim and cherubs, with percentages to the Old lightbringer himself, since he deserves a cut. It'd be like Multi-level-marketing. But would those noble souls in heaven really accept that? Of course not. That is why they'd have the possibility to complain. You see that line that goes around the corner over there? Good, that's the line for complaints. If you don't like it here, you could always go to Hell, you know? Lucy, hey, we've got another one for you. Chi-ching!
Where was I? Oh, that's right. Queues....... which appears to be suspiciously missing this particular morning. Uh-oh. This must be a bad omen. Something's bad is going to happen here. Rivers of blood, swarms of locusts....okay, scratch the last one. The Black Forest isn't exactly brimming over with those in early November. Um, hi. Yes, I'd like my tax card, please. Yes, I've brought form 08/15, a valid proof of residency, my membership card in Mensa, and the blood/semen/urine/stool combo. Should I just put the bucket over here? Just pour it out the window, huh? I had a feeling you wanted that just to scare people away. Now that I finally have those cards, I can tell you; I cheated. The bucket containts the remains of a dog that I first jerked off, then hit with a hammer. You can still see some fur lumps there. I know, I'm really sorry. But I just wasn't up to jerking off this morning. No, it wasn't that kind of an erection. Bye, you take care now.
Then......opening an account. In the bank which I closed the exact same kind of account half a year previously. Good foresight, chump. Want a banana? Parking place. God, where am I going to find a park-....hey, I'm in Germany. Sheesh. I forgot. My bad.I thought I had to leave it up on the boardwalk and leg it again, and then climb the fences in the impoundment yard to get it back later that evening. But I'm not in France. Which means there'll be a parking place. Goodie. Cute lady behind the counter. Is her smile always this wide? Is my nose bleeding or something? Could it be that she just finds me attractive........ let's not jump to conclusions, shall we? Hey, that colleague of hers that walked by smiled at me as well. Damn, I must be irresistible today. Down, boy. Look at her, she's a peck and hunter typer. Nothing for you. Probably won't bring you any beer. Just let her go. You need a woman that knows how to compile a Linux kernel and also swallows. Don't settle for anything less. Just open the damn account and walk away already. Allright, then. But if I go without sex for one more month, I'm going to hit on everyone, regardless of their appearance and technical knowledge. And when I find myself in bed with an overweight brachial lesbian football goalie, then you'll be sorry. Damn conscience.
Packing. That's all that remains. What do I need? Well, how long am I going to be there? Not that long. It's Wednesday today. I have to be back here on Sunday, since I'm starting the new job on Monday. Say I'll go back on Saturday. Four days then. Hmm... I don't need that much clothes. Two underpants will have to suffice. Sleep nude, then they'll stay fresh longer. And a cardigan. Five pairs of socks. Your feet smell, dude. Shut up, I'm still not using that foot deodorant thing. Sooo.. small, yet adequate supply of clothing into the small backpack. And my Phillips Expanium MP3 player. And a dozen of discs. Are you aware that your CD's take up more room than your clothing does? Shut up. I like music. Even so, one MP3-disc contains 12 hours of continuous music. You're not going to be there long enough listen through all of them, even if you played music 24/7. Sheesh. Well tell me, smartass; when you decide to jerk off at night, do you not take out two or three dirty magazines, although you know that you're probably going to come before you're halfway into the first one? Mmhmmm.. I thought you would see it my way. It's all about options. Now shut up.
Let me recap. Backpack = full. Two large 100liter bags = empty. Car = filled up. Packing crates = in the car. Sorta. Well, they wouldn't fit into the boot, so they're in the back seat. Looks like I'm preparing for a full-scale smuggling event, but whaddafuck... It's fun talking to customs officers. Cigarettes = I'm not smoking, remember? Sun glasses = I have no fucking idea where I left them, dude. I don't need those, this isn't the Blues Brothers? Jim Belushi is dead, now let's go.
12:15, Freiburg.
Hmm.. long queues on the other side of the Autobahn. Something must have happened. Ah, there, I see it now. One rescue truck towing another with its driving house cracked open. Beyond it, another truck with visible surface damages pulling its own trailer as well as the one of the victim. A long queue of trucks trail their gutted companion at a walking pace, making it seem as a funeral procession. I know that it only looks that way because it's too damn narrow to pass. It's a construction area, the right lane is only 2 meters wide, instead of the normal 2,55. Trucks are 2,25 or thereabouts. Not enough space to pass each other. But it makes me think, however....
I swallow and then I feel it. The bitter taste of garlic, easily diluted by alcohol. Submerged thoughts of Raisin Water Burn. All the stupid and/or intelligent phrases I've tried to tell myself the last year. Cut your losses. Eat the shadows, before they eat you. Don't kid yourself, it doesn't only feel like a loss, it *IS* a fucking loss. You thought it would be oh-so-fucking easy, didn't you? Hey, I can learn French. Hey, I already know a lot of computers. I'm going to breeze through this education. Wake up, fucknut. You didn't make it last year, and it took you three months of this semester to understand you're not going to do it now either. Then ask yourself: Are you doing it for yourself or for your parents? You already *KNEW* you were going to flunk more legendary than any other person in history. Uh huh. Still had to keep up them appearances, huh? Couldn't tell everyone that you knew that "Hey, I fucked up. I know you helped me move and bought me the French books and all that crap, but.... It's not really me." It didn't hurt, did it? You were prepared to be chewed out and borderline disowned, but you weren't. They weren't even angered. All they said was "okay, but you have to find something else to do before you break it off. You can't lay around doing nothing." Which, let's face it, is what I've done so far instead of reading thick French books on higher mathematics. One week. One fucking week. They came to Grenoble last Monday, and today it's Wednesday. You just got yourself a new flat and a new job in Freiburg, Germany. Right now, you are on your way to pack up the few belongings you didn't managed to press into the car last time. Seven boxes. I have seven boxes in my car. I hope that it's going to be enough. Sheesh. Who am I kidding? The flat is depressingly empty already. Two years of my life, and it all fits into two carloads. Except the fridge, of course. You can't get fridges into VW Golfs. Not any good fridges, at least. Scratch your failures. Start thinking about your future. Turn up the music. Loud. I listen to myself.
Different smells attack you on the way. Each place smells different. After Bern, it smells like burned chocolate. Sweet and bitter at the same time. I really like the new roads over Neuchatel. It's only ten kilometers shorter, but it saves me nearly a third of a tank of fuel. You just keep going straight past Bern instead of turning towards Fribourg, and then you meet up again in Lausanne, in that long downwards hill. So what if the view over Montreux is beautiful? After driving the same route ten-fifteen times you get sick of the ups and downs of mountains. This road might be flat as Kate Moss' chest, but it's much more tranquil for the nerves. Fuck it, I'm relaxing. No more redlining the car for four-five hours, getting 550 km out of the tank. Yeah, I'm keeping the speed limit for once. 120. So what if half of the other cars are passing me. I don't fucking care. I have no worries in the world, because I stopped going there last week. Driving across Europe, stereo blasting aggressive metal at full strength, having a job and a place to go to: This is serenity.
Woa. What's that? Two choppers, army markings. Looks like training or something. I didn't know they had military bases this close to the freeway. Only in Switzerland, I guess. And that's a jetplane? Those red things beneath the wings has to be fuel tanks, right? No one in their right mind would paint their bombs florescent red. Well, perhaps the Swiss would. You can't second-guess the Swiss, unless there's money involved. The Swiss will do anything for money. That's why they make great bankiers. That's why they aren't members of the European Union. You have to pay to enter that. The Swiss doesn't like that. But neither does the Norwegians. Ah, well. There's a lot of stupid people in Norway. I know most of them. Not that all of my friends are stupid, of course. No, not at all. Not my close friends. They might be described as ..... "special"... or "alternatively gifted"...but not stupid. Oooooo no. Not stupid.
So I talked to Anders yesterday. I thought he was in the car or something, because of the noise in the background. Turned out he was cutting something in the shop. I didn't ask, but I took it for granted that he was sharpening the edges of a snowboard or something. Yeah, the shop goes great nowadays. Snow just starting falling in Norway, so they'll start making money off the boards as well as the clothes soon. He was happy to hear that I was coming home. Hell, Niclas is also coming home in April. Fuck, he's already a physiotherapist. If you had asked anyone back when we finished high school, no way in hell someone would have picked him as the person most likely to complete his studies first. Lucky sod. Found his thing straight away. Oh, what's Jonty doing? Did he drop out or something? I hope not, because I'll be starting the same school as him next summer. What? No, you're kidding, right? She's pregnant? Woa, I just can't picture Jonty as a father. How did he take it? Uh huh. That's sporty of him. It was unexpected, right? Sheesh. So now they'll be moving together? Woa. No, I'm happy for him, I just have problems imagining him settling down. There's something I can't shake about the one single person in existence that managed to get laid with the line "I'm not from around here, and I'll be leaving tomorrow, but you look really nice, so would you like to sleep with me tonight?". Well, at least he's got the right girl. They make a great couple. They really do.
Idiot. Can't even turn his fucking blinker off. If you're driving in the right lane, you'd better realise that driving ten kilometers beneath the speed limit will get you blinked at...a lot. Nice car though. Audi A8 4.2. Technogically challenged moron. Got a nice suit, nice salary; wants to spend as much money on the car as fucking possible. So they sell him the 4.2, which guzzles petrol like a dehydrated swine. Should have gone for the 2.5 TDI instead, it has a nanomoment that's out of this world, and at only half the fuel consumption. My father has a 2.5 TDI in his A6. They don't make A8 Avants.
Um.... Damn. Got this expanding, slightly queasy feeling in my abdomens. I KNEW I should have taken a crap this morning before I left. There's nothing that shakes your bowels as a 5-hour car ride. Up, down, side to side; unless you're suffering from a severe form of constipation, you're going to visit that little room at the end of the hall within the first hour of your return. It's a given fact. Shit before you ride. Shit after. I broke rule number one. Shi..em.. damn. I'll just turn up the music instead. It'll keep my mind off it. And drive faster. We'll be in France soon, and I can step up the pace.
Fuck, the Swiss ARE crazy. Geneva has a photobox every second kilometer. And most of the cars are rolling around with CD plates anyway. Diplomats doesn't give a fuck about speed limits. What are they going to do? And in recent news, Switzerland expelled the Angolan ambassador for speeding within city limits. He is expected to leave the country tomorrow, together with the Canadian charge d'affaires, who was caught jaywalking. Morons. There is an infinite numbers of morons in this world. This number is always greater than the number of really cool people you meet. Neither categories of people contain women that wants to sleep with you. However, both of them contains women you want to sleep with. Morons can be attractive. Not in any given situation, but if they bring you beer for instance.
Geneva/Annemasse.
Swiss customs officers doesn't bother checking anything else than your sticker, and the French never bother checking anything at all. So what've you got there? A broken whisky bottle, two vials of cocaine, an attaché case containing a thermonuclear device and a cow, sir. Nothing to declare? Okay, move on. The one time I was pulled over here is when they had a trainee there. The two normal guys searched through the car and looked at the ski boots and all the food my mother had stuffed into the boot while this young female trainee asked me if I had any drugs with me. Even the normal guys cracked a smile at that one. Well, let's see... Yeah, I admit it. You got me. This whole student in a cheap beat-up car stuffed full with books, clothes and canned food is just a charade. I'm really one of the largest drug trafficants. Boy, you sure are too smart for me.
Brum, brum, bruuuum. In Switzerland, the gas pedal should be no more than 3/4 depressed. In France, it goes to the metal. My car can't go so fast it'd cost me any tickets, anyway. Of course, the French has these stupid peages. I hate toll booths. In France, you fucking pay 50 centimes for each kilometer you drive. It's okay in Switzerland, where you pay 40 SFR once a year for this sticker, and then you can drive all you want to. At least the roads in France are wonderful. And you can step on the gas without anyone saying anything. 150-160 or thereabouts. The official speed limit is 130, 110 if it's raining of snowing. But those are only guidelines, at least that's how I choose to interpret them.
17:00, Grenoble, France
God, I'm ready for that loo now. I feel like I'm about to give birth to a foal through my colon, which is a no-win situation for the both of us. Shit. Parking places! The French people invented double parking, but that was only because they came too late to get a normal spot. Ah, finally a bit of luck. A free spot there, right on the corner. I'm only taking the empty bags and the backpack up, all the stupid boxes can wait until tomorrow. I'm not going to start packing today anyway. Yeah. Tomorrow.
Therapy? is Therapy! Realise that.