Ruby Stark

I got off the U-Bahn at Hermannplatz and set this song by Dust Covered Carpet going. I walked along, tranquil with just a few whooshes of cars going by. I walked diagonally behind a cute, queer-looking girl with black hair who was carrying a wastepaper bin and it felt companionable and easy. The song took me into my building and through the corridor, across the courtyard, up the stairs, into my apartment; and it continued while I took my medicine and got a glass of water and removed my wristwatch.

Today, I wrote a lot of Clojure and watched tech videos and made a lasagne and cut my finger and it took an hour and a half to stop bleeding because of my anticoagulant drugs.

Tonight, I was out with Delicate. We met at the U-Bahn station and then pottered around on the street, killing time before the gig. We went to the venue and got beer and talked. The first guy came on. Words fail me. He was dressed up in a sort of poncho that was probably some sort of religious statement. He lit a candle on the table next to him and sang acapella, deadly serious, about the trials of his life. The only good part was this sort of fast, almost imperceptible waver in his voice. I felt like pouring my beer all over his candle. Then, he got out the clinky sticks. I couldn’t take it anymore and went outside and smoked a cigarette and took this photo:

I went back in and found Delicate and we watched the next band, a guy on guitar and a woman on performance art. He did squeaky, skittery sounds while she flapped her arms, crawled on the floor through the crowd and tap-danced. They did one song where the guy said, This is my favourite song of ours because [the girl] wrote it for me and it’s bigger love than real life it’s called Money 2. He then did his guitar thing and began shrieking like a pterodactyl, and the girl answer like an even angrier bird of prey. Thank God the audience were laughing. I loved it, and the strange, internalised malaise of irritation at something I can’t identify lifted.

Delicate and I left and wandered around on the street. He bought a chocolate croissant and I bought a banana doughnut and some Lucky Strikes. It felt good to be out in the quiet streets: Berlin is great at providing you your own little world. I felt happy for about fifteen minutes again, and then it faded. We walked to a bar and ate nachos with cheese and guacamole and I drank ingwertee.