Musci

I like to leave music playing in my room when I walk down to the other end of the corridor to make photocopies or pick up some fucking documents from my pigeon hole. I leave the door closed so as not to annoy my fellow-workers by allowing the music (usually electronic, Thomas Brinkmann currently) to escape disturbingly into the corridor, like a cloud of intoxicating or noxious gas.

I enjoy walking back down the corridor and hearing the rumble of music in the room as I approach the door. With Brinkmann, it sounds like a strange techno machine is going nuts behind the door, clicking, buzzing, booming, crackling and clanking. Pushing its membranes out in a compulsive trapped dance. Threatening to disintegrate yet always holding together.

Came out red

I dreamt that I drew a primary school teacher then started romancing or seducing her. When I poured what I thought was white wine into a glass, it came out red.

Thunk

When I am drinking a bottle of beer in the garden, I look forward to chucking the empty bottle onto the lawn. I will usually leave it lying there, sometimes for a couple of days, before slotting it back into place in the crate from whence it came.

I get great satisfaction from lobbing an empty bottle onto a soft surface this way. The flight of the bottle (usually a parabola) and the 'thunk' sound when it hits. These sensory pleasures combined with the faintly subversive gesture of throwing away a used object, both disrespecting it and 'loving' its heavy murky-coloured bottleness.

A similar though not as sweet pleasure comes from slamming an empty bottle, cup or glass down onto a wooden table. This might annoy (slightly) anyone with me who does not take kindly to sudden, loud noises. My pleasure is generally not lessened by this, as I tend to rationalise my action.

People who make a fuss about sudden noises are most likely those who are squeamish about certain foods.

Text Bananas

When I prepare Willem's sandwches and drinks for school, I usually put a banana in his bag. I write his name on it. The other parents write the names of their kids on their bananas.

Sometimes they do elegant curly letters and little pictures (stars or hearts or tiny spots).

I generally scrawl 'Willem' on the yellow berry.

But even when I write quickly, I take into account, albeit at a barely conscious level, nuances of letter type and handwriting style. Call it love, or vanity.

Marnix no longer eats fruit at school, so I cannot write on his banana.

blissed-out dreamy satisfaction

It is slightly frustrating that my wife does not walk around with a look of blissed-out, dreamy satisfaction on her face the day after a good bout of marital sexual intercourse.

Come to think of it, neither do I.

(why not?)

Therapy?

The Underground

I have just completed the Tilburg University employee survey. The final question asked for suggestions for new personnel policy.

I suggested a maze-like system of underground tunnels, caves and lakes be built, hundreds of feet deep. These would be used for recreational purposes like dreaming, writing and creating. There could also be caverns for breeding. There would be a secret entrance to Tilburg somewhere in the Stedekestraat, possibly on or near the site of the old La Poubelle.

This is unlikely to win me a Nintendo Wii