come here when you sleepwalk

come here when you sleep walk

home, pool party

birthday

aldinga, second favourite

street piano

beautiful sheets

 disco sun, spree

grey beach, spain

may day

nippys duck picnic

new light, new room, new home

rooftop

gumtree

christina 

melt, machines

devil's mountain

monster

görlitzer

haircut

grey sun

barcelona

karnival man

young

i miss you

Means to an End

Plans and to do lists are just a means to an end, or something we create to give us the feeling that such a thing actually exists. The truth is that it doesn’t or that if it does, we will never know it.

Stability doesn’t exist. Happiness doesn’t exist. Sadness doesn’t exist. Emotions are just illusions and desires on a straight line.

People who look happy on the internet aren’t. They are the same as you. The only people who actually qualify as ‘happy’ are the people who are content with their own complete oblivion.

We set goals we make lists and we have to keep making new lists but nothing ever gets done. We can make two million lists. We probably will in time. 

And we will keep ticking things off and writing new things down and never ever get anything done because we’re just pretending like there’s things to do. We want to be as busy as possible and do as little as possible at the same time. We want to pursue our dreams but we don’t want to crush them in the process. 

We don’t want to prove the truth that if anyone ever did have a simple and innocent dream and it was in reality naïve and impossible and entirely under-calculated. That these childhood dreams we didn’t even realise we had, these things we expected to happen in our lives were part of a world that never actually existed. They were part of a home and a family that never existed either. Part of simplified, idealised concepts, like lists, that we use to try and make sense of our lives, to mould it into something we can feel ok about.

We all know that at the end of the day none of it really exists. Nobody ever really loves anybody else. Nobody even knows what love is. Nobody even loves themselves so how could they care about anyone else. Love is just appreciating that someone once cared about you. It doesn’t mean anything and their care and your care are either inconsequential or detrimental to one another.

We have such high expectations of other people. We expect them to care about us. We expect that if we put a certain amount of time, of effort, of care, into other people that they should owe us something similar in return. This is not true. This does not mean that they won’t or that they shouldn’t, or that we should spend our lives expecting to be cheated and mistreated, but that we should do things with an absolute zero expectation, neither negative nor positive. As independent beings who can be happy when one other being has tried to make a similar connection, and that that is all it is.

Nobody deserves anything that they get at all. Nobody should expect to get anything either. Everything is chance and karma. They are the same thing too. 

If I was a bike

Analogy

if berlin were a person

if berlin were a person it would be a boy who didn't like me.

I have been in this city for a little over a year now and have never experienced the sense of a city having a personality as strongly as I have here.. or perhaps it is more that other cities have personalities too but they have more boring ones. I think that the people living in the city not only create part of the city's personality (any city), but also take on a part of it, mutual creation. 

It's kind of terrifying to think that your location can have such great power over your life, and over who you are as a person. I think we like to think of ourselves as being highly independent of our locations, this idea of I am myself because I am myself and if I move I am still myself. However, when you consider how influenced our lives are by our culture, not only in terms of how we act but also in terms of the way in which we think - i.e. language, and the limitations attached to that - culture being more of a means of thinking which simultaneously enables us to view the world around us and disables us from ever being able to see it objectively, it becomes apparent that our location, regardless of how connected or disconnected we feel in relation to it, has more influence on our personhood and self creation than we like to give it credit for. I think we like to think of our consciousness as a representation of our immunity to involuntary change but it just isn't the case.

In a way I feel very disconnected from part of the culture in this city. I feel like there is a beat that I've missed that I'll never be able to find, like I'll always be clapping out of time, or even if I could find the right time I'd be clapping at 2 beats per minute while everyone else was clapping at 4. The parts of the city that I do feel connected to, or that I do feel like I properly understand are the parts of myself, I'm not sure whether they were already there and I just realised them or if they have developed through my being here, but these parts of me that do fit in here don't fit into my old culture. I kind of feel like maybe they never did and that is somehow how or why I ended up here but now I feel torn between two equally unsolvable problems.

I have realised that the people I love and my love for this city are identical in their characteristics. I love them because of their impossibility. I have committed my life to pursuing the impossible, with limited success. I got here, I learnt the language, I have a house. I will never really be here, or belong here. I can't quite understand why. Maybe when I figure it out I will be able to change it, or be able to leave. If I ever really did figure it out I probably wouldn't be interested in it any more. It wouldn't seem as beautiful or mysterious or intelligent. The city and the men in the city and the men in my life will never really make sense to me, or me to them. I love the mystery but it is destroying me. They are both are cold and hard and bitter and loveless and I have made it my mission to somehow infiltrate that and become a part of that and force it to accept me, but in doing this, if i ever achieve my mission goal I will immediately loose what it was that defined the original appeal.

Berlin is a special city. I've always unconsciously looked at it in purely a positive light, as a city of youth and creativity, as an art city where people go to develop things. To be honest, until very recently I'd never looked or questioned any further than a superficial observation of 'there's something about berlin that I really love' - I've said that sentence to so many people at so many times and always clarified the sentence with it being something in the air and in the minds of the people that I loved or understood in some way that I couldn't put my finger on. I was satisfied with the vagueness of this until last weekend I was speaking with a girl about Berlin who made the observation that Berlin was a city for 'lost souls'. this statement both somehow conflicted with and fitted perfectly to my previous explanation of what it was I loved about it here. It had been staring me in the face so blankly and boldly for so long, my own face in the mirror and the faces of all the people who have been drawn here like moths to flames, and I couldn't see it because I only recognised myself. What makes sense about this city is that everyone here is lost and is searching, in some sort of semi-hopeless way. I think the people here have come to terms with the flaws and the hopelessness of humanity more than a lot of other countries and other cities and through this there is something simple and human and desperate and honest about this city. I had previously misinterpreted this as mystery and strength but actually what I think it really is is honesty and saddness. But these are perhaps the two most beautiful things that exist in the world.

The city and the people who have come here are hard and cold and loveless. Everyone here is isolated and wants to be that way. Everybody thinks that they are connected because they interact but they all remain so incredibly separate from one another despite all their interactions. They want to love themselves but they hate themselves and they want to hurt themselves through experiencing every experience available to them and this is the city of possibilities. No one here can love themselves and no one here can love anyone else either. They don't want to because they're all to terrified because no one is staying in this place anyway. This is a city of temporality. If you stay here too long you won't die old.  Everyone here has lost, or left the ideal, the childhood fantasy of home. Home doesn't exist in berlin. Home here is at best a place where you keep your things. It doesn't have a soul here. No one was born here and no one wants to stay here because you can never really have a home here and if you can't have a proper home you can never really relax or settle down or feel calm or safe or be in love. It's probably good for productivity but it's draining. People seem to care about other people in a way here more than they do in more advanced-western-focused cultures, but at the same time they go to such great lengths to isolate themselves from things.

The result is a bunch of people who don't act like what they want because they want a million different things at once. the result is a bunch of people who spend time together for the sake of it and who make plans so that they feel like they have a future even though they hate the idea of committing to anything or obligating themselves to do anything in the next five minutes. Berlin is the city where everybody is free but bound. We have all the time in the world and no money to do anything with. It's the city where people complain about having no money instead of complaining about work. It's the city where kindness is empty. It's the city where lost souls find each other and are never really sure whether they'd prefer just to be alone.

dialectic

I have this blog. I don't like telling people that I write. I dislike even more telling people that I'm a writer, or even that I want to be. Because I'm not. I'm not really sure where the legitimate point is that you can tell someone that you 'are' something and not be a total jerk or wanker about it, especially with things like being a 'writer' or an 'artist' which are really vague concepts. I don't think I could feel justified in saying that I was really a writer unless I was living off it and even then I think I'd still feel like I was lying and being a bit wanky about it. 

I mean, I really enjoy writing and I've said this many times in the past few months (where I am currently in a foreign city - or I am a foreigner in my current city - and am finishing the degree I have been doing for the past 4 years and am lacking a concrete answer to the question of what it is exactly that I 'do' or am doing here) "If I were to have a skill, then it would probably be writing" - It is the only thing that I can really pick out that I am generally capable of being good (not amazing but better than average, maybe) at, and to my own luck it is also something that I enjoy. The logical connection between these two facts would be that I should "be" a "writer". But it's not that simple.

First year out of highschool my university preferences were 1. Journalism and 2. Bachelor of Arts. Bachelor of Arts was what I really wanted to do anyway, but I hated the idea of telling people that that was what I was doing at uni, and also of having to explain what it was to people- that it's not art per se etc. - (and rightfully so as I thereafter found out), so I opted for journalism as my number one in the unlikely even that my half-arsed efforts of yr12 resulted in a TER good enough to get into the course. To my surprise and simultaneous disappointment/pleasure I scraped into journalism by .01% of my TER score. After six months - actually after about 2 days - of participating in this course I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do, however I still find it very difficult to see any other professional option for writing. 

On the first day of Journalism class they told us,

"Journalism isn't about being a good writer, it's about getting good contacts and stories. Noone cares about what you say, or the way that you say it."

This was true and also good advice but not what I really wanted to be hearing at the time. I also took a creative writing class as the elective element of my journalism degree. This was the biggest load of bullshit I have ever legitimately encountered. It was a total sham. I wrote utter shit, knew I was doing it and the teacher soaked it up. He wanted shit. We made a play as a literary text or something and I acted as Bindi Irwin and it was this style of wank where it seems like it means something big and deep, so deep and meaningful that if you can't understand it it must just be because you're an idiot, but actually it doesn't mean anything. It did not mean anything. It was just nonsense we made up five minutes before class but we got such a good mark. And then I think I got less good marks for the things that I made as part of this course that were honest writing and not in this wanky bullshit style that they were looking for. I really hate that about writing. 

and I don't know what I hated more, this course or journalism and these two things present themselves as being really the only two options for professional writing but I hate both of them, yet there is no part of actual writing, the writing that I choose to do, that I do not enjoy.

A few months ago I started an internship at a magazine here in Berlin and was merely reminded of the fact that journalism is: 

a. not something I enjoy and 

b. not something that I am good at. 

It's bizarre because it's writing, but I am really genuinely quite terrible at this style of simplistic writing and I find it incredibly difficult, frustrating and time consuming. But theoretically it's what I want to do? I don't know, I just had the same feeling, and realisation, as I'd had when I started the journalism degree and that was that I hate this it's vapid and I can't do it and I don't want to anyway.

So then, the natural conclusion must be that the writing I enjoy (and am good at (?)) must be 'creative writing'. Berlin is a great city for creative writing. It is cheap and consequently a place that people come to to write. I did a little bit of searching and came up with a few literary journals produced in the city along with a store supporting independent publishing. I went into this store and talked to the people there. They were pretty friendly but also somehow really 'cool' (rather than being total dorks which is how I imagine most good writers to actually be) and I had that feeling of that I was some how less intelligent, less legitimately a writer and less cool because I didn't really know many of the things that they were talking about. Basically I went there and asked how one goes about submitting to a journal or writing something and having it independly published or connecting oneself with other writers in the city.. not really crazy or bizarre questions but these questions were relatively unanswered and I was instead given a large pile of "art" journals, which I bought, took home, and read... and they gave me the similar feeling that the boy in the store had given me when I'd asked me about the books. I felt like I was stupid for not understanding what the point of these publications was. I felt like they were cool and aesthetically pleasing and from an overview seemed like really interesting concepts, like there must be something meaningful or interesting inside, but after glossing through all these publications and cool ideas and collaborations I came out with a feeling that I had found very few items of real substance, but also feeling that I must be the less intellectual one for not having found them. Maybe I am, I don't know, maybe I just need to know more about art or read more or take more drugs or be more open minded. But actually I've read a lot and the university essays I read make a lot more linear sense and have more impacting points behind them (unsurprisingly) than any of the things I took home from that store. Aren't we seeking to move people or to communicate something by our writing? I felt like these pieces of writing were just things whirling around and looking beautiful, that one could maybe make a meaning out of if they intended to do so, but didn't have to. They weren't open or honest or vulnerable or true.

I think that is the key of what frustrated me about these pieces, the lack of simplicity and honesty and the resultant vulnerablity that comes with that. The humanity of it - That is what is interesting about writing and about other people's writing and about reading, seeing into the human mind, feeling how other people feel, experiencing something that can really only be experienced by re-reading something that has been re-told by writing on paper, it's so different than explaining something aloud. The experience described and re-read is experienced more internally than something that's merely said aloud and heard by a passive listener. Reading is somehow more active. But then why does everything have to be this vague bullshit that can 'mean whatever you want it to mean' - why can't people just write something honest and true about their lives, or admit that they don't have any idea, and just tell a story. 

If someone can tell me where to find this kind of writing, this simple writing, this honest writing that makes you feel connected to the author, and to the rest of the world rather than feeling separated and inferior to and from it, please let me know. I have found it a few times, in the books I have loved, sometimes in blogs, in zines (which have a misleading and unnecessary connection with being used to make heavy political statements or the like but the beautiful thing about zines is that they can be whatever you make them and I think that the wonderfully great zines are the ones where people tell these simple stories about things that have actually happened). I think the great skill of writing is being able to make something mundane sound interesting, or real, making things sound real whether they are or they aren't, making them believable and understandable and imaginable. 

This is the kind of writing I wish to produce and the kind of writing I also wish to seek out. I find it endlessly frustrating that the current writing, at least what I have discovered in this city at this point in my searches, maybe I've been looking in the wrong places, is so far from simplicity and honesty and humanness and so obsessed with being something other than what it is, coming out from people who are so obsessed with being someone other than themselves I think. I hate that about art. People get so carried away with it as an identity that they hide themselves behind this crazy persona that's totally forged and believe somehow that they've created a better personality but I believe that there is something really really beautiful about people in their most simple, open, honest self, even with all their flaws because they all come from a history or a reason and I'm so tired of this focus on distorting everything, it's not making anything any more interesting or any more beautiful.

Red flags (it's a fine line)

These qualities indicate that you should be careful because this person is probably a scrub. or a bad person or someone you're not going to get along with very well. When not existing in great quantities they can however be overlooked and also overruled by positive things like getting jokes or being good looking. There is a very fine line between red flags and deal breakers and they are all relative to the context of the situation and whether or not the guy has a dog.

using too many emoticons and or abbreviations (emoji is somewhat excluded from this though)

not having a top sheet

talking badly about other girls (they will inevitably speak the same way about you)

bad skin (if it's bad on the face it's probably bad other places too...)

balding (that shit's not going to get any better)

using the word 'boobies' at any point

not liking animals

not liking cats (liking cats too much can also be problematic)

liking everything/everyone i.e. being unrealistically positive and thus making me feel like a horrible negative person which actually i don't think i am - i'm just realistic

bad shoes

bad jeans

not having a phone

talking about doing things that they never actually do (actually this should probably be a deal breaker) - you know those people who are always 'going overseas in six months' always

people who make you feel shit for not knowing as much about some random shit thing they happen to know heaps about

people whose ex(es) looks like you

people who look like your ex(es)

shoplifting

not understanding sarcasm

deal breakers cont.

other deal breakers also include:

not liking seinfeld

liking the simpsons better than seinfeld

not buying ones own underwear/socks (this also is connected with not doing own washing but if you're getting to that point in your decisions you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with that guy because he's probably already broken about 50 deals)

being a vegan (vegetarian is also not good but can be wavered depending on how militant the person is about it)

wearing novelty tshirts

not liking children (as much as i say i don't like children, men who don't like children are usually not the best)

asking to split the bill on the first date (it's ok to agree to it but you should always offer to pay first, at least on the first date when you're trying to convince the other person that you're a decent person)

Stella

Mary has 103 variant forms: 

Mair, Maire, Mal, Malia, Mallie, Mame, Mamie, Manette, Manon,Manya, Mara, Marabel, Marabelle, Mare, Maree, Marella, Marelle, Maren, Maretta, Marette, Maria, Mariam, Marian, Mariana, Mariann, Marianna, Marianne, Marice, Maridel, Marie, Mariel,Mariela, Mariella, Marielle, Marietta, Mariette, Marilee, Marilin, Marilla, Marilyn, Marin, Marion,Mariquilla, Mariquita, Mariska, Marita, Maritsa, Maritza, Marja, Marjan, Marje, Marla, Marlo,Marya, Maryann, Maryanne, Marybel, Marybell, Marybeth, Maryjo, Marylee, Marylin, Marylou,Marylu, Marysa, Maryse, Marysia, Masha, Maura, Maure, Maureen, Maurene, Maurine, Maurise,Maurita, Maurizia, Mavra, May, Mayme, Maymie, Mayra, Mayria, Meridel, Meriel, Mimi, Minette,Minnie, Minny, Miriam, Mitzi, Moira, Moire, Moll, Mollie, Molly, Morag, Moya, Muire, Murial,Muriel, Murielle, Poll and Polly.

Five Seven Five

Reading Naked Lunch

At an open air party

Don’t be a cliché

 

Moved to Berlin and

Dyed my hair carnation pink

I am a cliché

Every boy I like

Who is the most beautiful

Definitely gay

Buy a club mate

Only wear vintage clothing

Never learn German

I love club mate

I only wear vintage clothes

I don’t speak German

I need a boyfriend

With a motor bike and dog

Friend is ok too

Even if you’re cool

Yellow and black together

Look like a street sign

All of the people

Find dogs indoors normal

I don’t understand

If you love glitter

You have probably taken

Some MDMA

I will judge you by

How much information is

On your facebook page

Really want a cat

But they live too long, would be

Irresponsible

Life changing advice:

Always the second cheapest

Available option

  

Boys who have Tumblrs

Are usually a little

Bit maladjusted

If you are ugly

And you want to look better

You should grow a beard

Parents worked out Skype

Because they’re really stingy

Still can’t use email

 

 

Deal breakers include

Abbreviations in texts

Bad skin and bad shoes

Beer is the best drink

Not because it tastes so good

But because it’s cheap

If you have a dog

I will overlook at least

One whole deal breaker

Sorry for being

Negative, actually I’m

Just being honest

Best way to get over

Still not having a girlfriend

Is getting a bike

 

Most happy people

Are in my own opinion

Unintelligent

I like the canal

The swans are kind of scary

But I still feed them

It makes me happy

When people look like their pets

Especially dogs

Bike riding is good

Most of the time except for

Uphill, then I walk

I like Paul Simon
You can not judge me on that
But I can judge you

deal breakers

If you don't have one or more of the following you are probably, almost definitely an unreliable person and therefore undatable:

a driver's licence
If i can get a driver's license, me being the probably worst person as far as coordination and directions are concerned (almost failing the test because I kept turning left instead of right when the instructor told me where to turn) then so can you! and you can probably do it in a quater as many driving lessons as it took me and therefore a quater as much money and you probably won't fail the test either.
It is OK not to have a car, but a license means you can get anywhere yourself if you have to.

a room that's not at your parent's house
obvious one. it's awkward having to meet people parents and while it's great that they have a wide screen tv and that your mum cooks jar pasta for you every night and there's lots of parent's things like biscuts and icecream and fruit always in the cupboards that you'll never find in a share house (or never for longer than a day or two) it's not worth it! move out into a shitty share house get a TV from cash converters, put it at the end of your bed, make some jar pasta (or get take away even better) and bring your girlfriend over and watch seinfeld with her. nothing beats this, nothing.


a job (uni doesn't count as a job)
If you're not at uni and you don't have a job then it's obvious why you should have a job. bums are not attractive people and they're also the biggest scabs. uni students without jobs are also big scabs and seem to think they can claim some sort of moral high ground for it - but you cant! do you know how many people who study and actually have jobs? do you realise that half of uni is actually holidays, literally?? there is time to work. it is easy to work, someone will hire you if you make the effort to apply and people who say they tried once because they emailed their resume to one company once and give up, that's bull shit make a bit of effort - it's actually not very hard. again - if i can get a job (like with the driving licence) as the clumsiest bad at multitasking person i know also with the worst memory at a fine dining restaurant adn get a $150 tip on my first shift then so can anyone who wants to! Stop being a stinge and get a job and make some money so you can come out and buy your own beers instead of people having to bribe you simply because you know they will.


a phone plan (fuck having to call people all the time because they never have credit)
yeah. that one is bullshit. don't make me waste my money because you're a stinge. get a job get a phone plan get a life grow up.
also having a smart phone that has the internet (usually coming as part of a plan) is the best because you can answer your own questions using that instead of me having to use my phone to answer them. also please if you're not going to have an iphone i won't judge you but dont get one of those 'like-the-i-phone-but-not-the-iphone-phones' they're bullshit stop being alternative join the crowd the reason everyone has it isn't because it's cool it's because it's extremely useful. give up get on the band wagon of LOGIC


a double bed
you would be surprised how many people actually don't tick this box. and then it's oh well we bet to stay at yours because i don't have a doble bed orr it's 'i have to stay at mine tonight but i need to sleep well and i can't sleep properly when you're in the bed because there's no room and it's too hot so let's just stay at our own houses' you know ikea sells doble matresses for 50euros and frames for 40. i will judge you less for having a matress on the floor than having a single bed with a frame. and i don't care if it's a king single its still a single.


a credit, or at least a debit card
if you don't have this then your'e the annoying person who always asks the other person if they can borrow their credit card every time they want to buy anything on the internet. that is annoying. then the other person has to ask you to pay them back when you've forgotten adn talking about money between friends and or lovers is just not ideal - on that note MEN you should always ofter to pay, and pay WOMEN you should also always offer to pay but also let the man pay sometimes because it makes him feel manly. men who split the bill on the first date are deal breakers. men who pay without you even knowing about it automatically score an extra free 3 dates by default because it is the most charming thing anyone can do. it is sexier to pay on credit card than in cash.


a lap top or some form of computer
basically you need not to need to use my stuff. it is inevitable as soon as you use my things i will find a reason that i want to use them while you're using them and be annoyed with you for using them. maybe this is a symptom of my being an only child and this is just a personal problem but either way it is a total deal breaker. also please don't be one of those people who hates the internet - you know the only reason you hate it is because you know that you would love it too much if you tried it and be even more addicted than any more of your friends that you give credit to. get the internet and get some self control.






All of these things enable you to be an independent person who doesn't have to rely on or bother other people and they also enable you to help other people instead of them having to help you. If this is not the case your boyfriend is just a big fat leech who is using you to pursue his life of 'not growing up' which as endearing as it sounds is actually just clinging on to laziness and immaturity.

Fish aren’t really animals

It’s kind of universally accepted that while fish are definitely more animal than say, a tree, they’re still somehow less animal than other proper animals i.e. cats, hence the fact that people who are actually just picky eaters (pescetarians) feel ok about calling themselves vegetarians because “Fish aren’t really animals”. I had been brought up with this idea deeply instilled, so deep that it had become an unquestionable fact rather than a matter of debate.

In my childhood I had sort of a tragic history with pets. I was an only child and the natural solution both for me and for my parents to my lack of sibling attention, was instead of buying me lots of toys, buying me lots of animals. These animals eventually included both a horse (which died because we let it eat too many dandelions) and a pony. I had two cats until when I was 15 and my mum gave our sick cat milk to help him feel better. It turns out cats are lactose intolerant and the reason it was sick in the first place was because we’d given it milk. The sicker it got the more milk we gave it. The cat of course died and its death was followed shortly by the death of the other cat. This was very close to the time of the death of my grandfather and I remember feeling guilty because I wasn’t really very upset about the person-death but I really cared about the cats. I’d had a number of mice and a budgie that were eaten by the cats, who kindly left a trail of blood and parts as evidence for the then 5 year old me to discover.

the pet garden, where my dead animals got buried - every succulent is a dead  pet

I had a pet cockatiel (that actually didn’t like me and had just chosen my mum as it’s life partner and all I ever wanted was for it to pay me attention and not my mum who didn’t even want the attention) that I also killed. By accident of course, it had been swimming in our kitchen sink and I decided to wrap it up in a blanket because it was all wet. Then I forgot about it. I remembered maybe three hours later, three hours too late. My parents bought me a new one, which looked identical, the same day and this one liked me better than mum so I was happy. The point is anyway that all of these deaths were quite traumatic experiences for me as a child.

Parallel to these occurrences I also had an undefined number of pet fish. I always named the fish but whereas I could still list most of the other pets that I’d had I couldn’t tell you a single name of a fish that I’d had (possibly Big and Little? I remember this because I remember that I couldn’t tell them apart). Fish deaths just weren’t that sad. I mean nobody was going to suggest flushing the budgie down the toilet but isn’t it really principally the same? Once I had an axolotl that I thought might have grown lungs and climbed out of the tank and into my bed because it literally just disappeared. I was kind of terrified about this. It was really the only possibility I could think of and I couldn’t find the thing for days! For whatever reason I eventually decided to clean the tank and found it sucked up half way into the filter. It used to be a yellow axolotl and all I could see was its now red tail. That was definitely traumatic but only because it was so gross! Fish just aren’t relatable. They don’t even have proper memories. I think ants are more relatable even than fish, at least they are present enough to live systematically. Fish are just chilling out, hanging out, swimming around. That is also mostly what makes them so awesome but only in the same way that a lava lamp is awesome.

In my later life I’ve had a (also undefined) number of fighter fish as pets. I know that they look a. miserable and depressed and b. dead, most of the time but they’re the lowest maintenance pets that you can own. People always came over and were like ‘oh Mary I think your fish is dead’ and I’d always be like ‘oh shit yeah maybe it is’, and then I’d tap it and be like ‘nope still going’. You can literally keep them in a jam jar and feed them once a week and they’ll live for ages! Side note: they also make really good neutral presents i.e. when the it’s the guy you’ve been dating for a month’s birthday. They’re cheap and it’s not like giving someone something they actually have to take proper care of, it’s like giving them a super fun decoration.

This kind of practice (aside from the fact that I have been informed that their native environment is small dried up puddles so a jam jar should be total luxury) is perfectly acceptable in Australia. That’s what you do with fighter fish because that’s the kind of fish they are. If you put them with other fish they’ll kill each other so their life was predestined to be spent in jail. I mean the people breeding these fish and selling these fish are the same people making these little boxes you’re supposed to keep them in. That must therefore be what they’re supposed to go in right? I mean why question it? I didn’t.

Anyway so then I came to Germany and I wanted to get a pet without being so irresponsible as to buy something like a cat (which is what I really wanted to buy) that would live for like 20 years and actually need attention and cost ongoing money. So I found a pet store and went there with 10 Euros and the intention of buying a fighter fish and everything necessary to keep it alive. As far I was concerned it was a flawless plan. If they didn’t have fighter fish I’d just buy a stupid gold fish and although I’ve never had a gold fish live for longer than a month I decided I could just buy a new one anyway.

If I had been in Australia, my plan would have been flawless. Unfortunately I was in Deutschland and the fact that I had not pre-empted any of the problems with my plan, and also didn’t realise that they were problems until it was too late, meant that my fish mission failed avalanche style.

I went into the pet store with my limited German and wandered around for a bit, seeing if I could see any fighter fish without having to talk to anyone. I had no luck and also didn’t see any fish that looked like you could keep them alive without having to spend lots of money on extra equipment. They didn’t even have any goldfish (I was later told that apparently they’re seasonal? Like fruit? Don’t they live for like 10 years and get giant? Whatever). It had taken me a really long time to find this pet shop though and I really was set on the idea of coming home with a pet so I decided to ask anyway. I asked if they had fighter fish and they were like yes sure. And I was like really oh sorry I’m so stupid I didn’t notice the section (looking for the like corner of square mini-tanks that they usually keep them in). It turns out the reason I didn’t find the fighter fish was because they were swimming around both like and with normal fish in this really big fish tank! I’m still kind of confused about how this was possible but apparently it was. I thought they’d eat all the other fish but the lady said they only ate each other or something. Then I told her well good, I want one. I think at this point I stupidly and completely unsuspectingly said something like ‘oh I thought they’d be in those small containers they’re normally in’. The woman just looked at me like I’d asked her why they were selling normal kittens instead of bonsai ones. She was like ‘oh I’ve seen pictures of that on the internet it’s so terrible for the animals they don’t even look alive anymore.’ This I guess is true but I didn’t know! I just thought that was how they were supposed to look! I mean those creatures that live under the sea where there’s no light don’t look very pretty or very happy either and I don’t think that’s any result of animal cruelty. Then she proceeded to tell me about Germany’s laws about animal cruelty and implied that you would definitely be liable for some sort of fine for keeping a fish in a jam jar. I decided to play along – I thought ok fuck it I’ll spend the extra ten euros and keep the stupid fish in a big fish bowl (luxury living for a fighter fish).

Then I told her I wanted one fish and one bowl. First she freaked out and told me that I couldn’t just buy one fish because it would be lonely and that would therefore be animal cruelty. I had to buy three. Come on that’s like three times the price! I was like ok I’ll buy two and I want this bowl and pointed to some goldfish bowl. I would like to highlight here that when I say ‘goldfish bowl’ you do know exactly what I’m talking about – because that’s what it is. That is the round bowl that is always the same sort of size that you keep goldfish in. The woman’s like ‘that bowl is not for fish its just for plants its inhumane to keep fish in a bowl like that’. How was I supposed to see that one coming it’s a fucking fishbowl not a plant bowl. Nobody buys that shit and puts plants in it that’s boring. She told me that I had to buy at least three fish and an actual proper aquarium, like something that I would have imagined you could put 20 fish in, for these three fish. If this was happening in Australia I would have decided that the woman was just being a bitch and trying to up sell but this was legit. She actually thought that I was a horrible person; I think she probably thought she should report me or something. I also left with the feeling that I had been enlightened to some sort of fish-friendly religion and that maybe I actually was a terrible person for wanting to keep a fish in a jar because I guess if it was a cat and it looked so sad I’d feel pretty guilty. But fish are fish! I’ve realised that the solution is going back and saying that I already have a running aquarium and that I’d a fish to add to my existing collection and also to start a plant bowl. I still haven’t worked up the courage to do this yet, partly because I feel like there may be further unforeseeable flaws in this new plan and partly because the woman made me feel like I would be a terrible person if I did do this and also because I’m worried that my German housemates will be of the same opinion as the pet shop lady and disown/report me.