“Everyone” is an artist..”

aiiiiii those londoners and their bank holiday weekends. for the last week had eight, yes EIGHT people in town visiting all at once. pretty hectic and stressful at times but altogether lots of fun. a german friend commented that i would be really gutted if no one came to visit at all. and admittedly stressing about how you will spend time with all the people who you would really like to see who would like to see you is most definitely a first world problem.

highlights of the last week of the british invasion include a fantastic gig from the wonderful duo that is tetine. they played at hebbel hau zwei as part of this brazilian festival. and i was more than a little chuffed to see how much the crowd got into it. gigs in arts venues are always a bit tricky, but those two tore it up. afterwards was a reallly dirty baille funk dj set. danced so much i sweated off all my make up. dj turned out to know thatf*kingsara, i gave her props for the set she was playing, and  ended up dancing with this guy who turned out to be part of this breakdancing crew who was on tour. he invited me to come see his show the next night, and i felt kind of ridiculous when i explained i couldn’t, becuase saturday night i had a rehearsal for a short film, and then a mate from manchester was djing in this club in xberg, and then i had to go to another club friends from london were djing at in mitte, (this is not including the two other invitations i had declined, a houseparty in friedrichsein a random boy at tape club had invited me to the night  before, and a gig my friend lucas’s band was playing)

(didn’t i move here to get away from the chaos that is my life in london? i wondered)

the dj moved from baille funk to missy elliot. i started dancing again. but then in true cinderella fashion i realised it was getting late late late, and i had promised i’d go see my friend alex spin at glasscube. and now its like sometime before three, and its a twenty minute cycle away. so i say good bye to the b boy, and the dj, and  tetine, grab my friend winta and cycle over to mitte. alex always ends his set with *fly like an eagle. and just as me and my friend winta park our bikes outside i can hear the last bars of the track… damn.
so i miss the set but have a nice chat with winta and alex and before i know its home time so i can rest up for another marathon day.  saturday i try to hook up with the various londoners in town, but manage to be out of cync with all of them. then i make it through the rehearsal, and am half an hour late to meet my friends for the first club i’m meant to be at. and that kind of doesn’t work out.

so we head over to 15 above the club weekend for the tetine set. and my friend deb is a little amazed by the concept of a club on the fifteenth floor of an office building. and there is q jumping  and people watching in the lift. we decide to check out the terrace and its freezing cold so they’re giving out blankets, and we’re looking over alexanderplatz, drinking cuba libres, playing some variation of truth or dare and cruising all the girls who walk by/over us in totally weather inapropiate dresses.

the next day my friend deb and i head over to mauer park in prenzlaur berg. first time i’ve made it out there since i moved here. eventually catch up with winta again who’s with noemi. and the park is so summer it hurts. there is  a rock band, and a samba school, and random picnics, and random couples making out, and the flea market and random cafe’s. and it makes me think that you would only get this kind of vibe in london if there was some kind of festival on. and i feel like a traitor instantly for thinking it.

yesterday, four guests left. show them all the almost final cut of notbar doc. really positive feedback. feels like a film now really, starting to consider sending it to festivals and not just screening randomlly here and there. finally get to hang out with my friend haje and his girlfriend elena. we meet up with thatf*kingsara and uta. have wonderful long dinner at cafe’ v and talk about culture, gadgets, blagging, long distance relationships, and what makes butch girls hot. (you had to be there)

so this is my last week of random freeflow play time. next monday begins the chapter of daily german classes and importing footage for the online doc. so there may be less adventures. but then again… this is berlin, so maybe not…

really
really random weekend. it started thursday. i spend hours at glasscube
in mitte with some kind of drink subsidy* care of a bartender friend
there. and its the first time the boys have seen me glammed up as i’m
going to broken hearts club after. they don’t join as they’re not
feeling the fashion/hipster party vibe. so i go to broken hearts club
by myself about 3am. run into an actress i’ll be in a short film with
next month. she shows me another side of berlin. where pretty girls in
cute dresses have drinks bought for them. she was seriously protective
of me, and warm. introducing me to various people, telling everyone how
beautiful she thought i was. really sweet girl. i hope we get to party
again.

i have a really great chat with a random guy i meet
through her, and he’s super encouraging about my move here, really
should have gotten his number. but then i’m distracted as i see a dj i
know from london, cormac, so i go over and say hello. and he’s spinning
at this club in my neighborhood the next day. so we hang out, exchange
numbers and sometime around four am my friend gemma shows up. so i
don’t leave until about half five.

friday i hide out in my
studio. find these great stills of the notbar eviction through a random
blog. get in touch with the girl and she’s going to send them to me.
really makes my day as i have no footage of that crazy morning of
policemen, firemen, and the chilled out notbar crew. then i make it
home, cycle out the door sometime after midnight. and i’m loving my
kiez, and the fact that a five minute cycle takes me to a club. and
that the club is totally hidden away. i get there and cormac
is super friendly. he introduces me to his friend peter who also djing.
both of their sets were blinding. totally thought i hated techno and
minimal techno, but they broadened my horizons on that massivelly.
crowd were really into it.

we leave and head to panorama bar,
and hours later are restless again and get in a cab to go to club de
visionaire, but its closed so we wander to the street and see some
ravers, who tell us another club, arena is around the corner. so we go
there, and it must be like 8 am. and then hours later we’re back at my
house. and then before it its the next day. try to get hold of
thatfuckingsara but she doesn’t pick up the phone. so its onwards and
upwards to white trash, then some anarchist pizza place, then a private
party at scala, then panorama bar, and when peter says we are heading
to bar 25 after i’m kind of not feeling it. but we get there and its
not so crowded you can’t dance, and the crowd are less *zombie then
they were the last time we were there. and i’m liking the music. and i
run into maurice and then the boys from sameheadz

the
whole weekend was this endless delicious blur of
raving/talking/drinking with little sleep featuring. it was like having
the best parts of shoreditch and berlin all at once. but the thing it really made me think about, is how you can move in the same scenes, live in the same areas, have mutual friends with someone, and really never get to meet them. and then suddenly in another city, context, it all makes sense. life operates on a random kind of logic i think. you never know when your paths really cross, but when its the right time its a tasty adventure…

Currently listening : What Else Is There? By Röyksopp Release date: By 2006-01-24

It’s now  two months since I’ve been here.  I’m more and more attached to my bike (despite the fact i’m hemorrhaging cash on the old girl, the fact I can leave her out all night and she’s still waiting for me makes me  like her more and more)  Meanwhile what little German I started to gain is slipping, taking classes feels more more urgent. The money situation is worse but then my sense of how to live on less is better.

I feel like without a day job to fight against,  I’ve lost a lot of discipline. I feel knocked back by not having a schedule or structure, and not having people around me who have schedule or structure.  I feel inspired by the city, in love with it a little, but also overwhelmed by it. But it is getting easier to set my own limits.  To say when I need to leave, to stay in my studio and work, to have an early night so I can work a full day the next day. But my achievements constantly seem a little lost in all I have to do, learn, sort out. For example that I still have to sign up for  German classes, for example the fact that I’m only now finishing the notbar doc, and haven’t even begun to import any of the footage of the on line doc  since I’ve been here.

I know I have something, I know there is a reason new friends seem to want to keep hanging out, or to develop the friendship, or work with me creatively. But I do feel knocked back. By  the increasing pace of my fledgling but busy social life, by the stream of guests from out of town. And now that I have seriously derailed from the  serial monogamy track, I feel all sorts of other things.  this sense of having a relationship here being completely impossible because everyone is cruising and hooking up. Wanting a relationship here especially because it seems so impossible.  Not wanting it really because I know so well what those boys are like away from their girlfriends.

Feeling like I’m part of a group. A group of boys. Feeling like it would take years and years (if ever)    for me to really be part of it. Being surprised that my friends are truer friends than I think. Being disappointed that my friends are not friends in the way I’m used to.  Feeling special because I’m still relatively new in town. Feeling like my sell by date is soon as there is a constant stream of new girls in town.  Looking around me at the smug girls who have managed to score boyfriends and thinking I’m far too much of a party girl to achieve  their committed state.

Feeling at peace with my new sexual identity. Feeling like I have no sexual identity. Feeling like a straight girl who is bi in inverted commas and just cruises other straight girls and maybe  kisses them when we’re both drunk and in a club with boys watching. Feeling like I fancy no girls on the girl scene. Feeling like a fake on the girl scene anyway. Feeling like straight sex isn’t quite enough, feeling like lesbian sex isn’t really either. Wanting sex all the time, getting it and wanting to step back from it for a while.

Currently I carry a myth in my head. The hot hipster boy who will look at me like I am the hottest coolest girl in the room. The boy whose arm I hang on smugly. The one who is so into me, he doesn’t f**k around when I’m not there. And we’re into the same music, and art and films. And we are as likely to go to a live gig as stay out all night at an after-hours.  I have no idea if he exists. But then I remember something my friend Uta said to me when I was flat hunting. That I didn’t have to compromise, that I could find what I wanted but I would just have to be more patient…

At any rate, at this moment, I’m feeling all turned on by summer.   
I’m enjoying the random flirting and playing, and  I’m way more interested in finishing these films and setting up this site than falling into a relationship.

Two months down, ten to go…We. Shall. See….

"Man’s life is essentially without meaning or purpose and human beings cannot really communicate. Existence is futile. Illogical and meaningless Art is the only worthwhile art. It will lead us to silence.

Now…

What the f&%k shall I wear…"