Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Of big city tourette and post-strike tranquility (with lesbians)

The public transport strike had a deeper impact on people than most of the red plastic bag wearing train and bus drivers could possibly imagine. The S-Bahn trains were about to burst, people waitet hours fo one of the about five buses that were actually in service and once they arrived, no one seemed to notice that there simply is NO WAY to squeeze 40 more people in a bus constructed for 60 which is nonetheless already filled with 80.
The streets were crowded by cyclists who were very obviously not used to riding their bike to work in inner city rush hour traffic.

Everybody was so tense you could literally feel the agression, filter it out of the air and putl it in transparent plastic bags for further inspection. It was the first time I ever saw a man being attacked in a train because he made someone's bike fall over.
Not a very relaxing way of travelling (but then, when is public transport ever?)

And in the middle of all this, there I was. It was ten in the morning, I hadn't had time to have breakfast yet and had just peeled myself out of an S-Bahn train in order to meet my sister at her work place, pick up her car and drive a friend to his doctor's appointment in the charming neighbourhood of Berlin Wedding.

I was coming from Jannowitzbrücke, zig-zagging my way through the masses on the sidewalk. In situations like this, people get on my nerves. Full stop. Generally. No matter what they do. But in this case, my anger was concentrated on a lady walking in front of me (without any hope of me passing her because there was no space and anyway, she was walking just as fast as I did and you know me, I'm always running), having her pre-work smoke and blowing her smoke, unintentionally, but I don't fucking care about that, right - in - my - face.

Arrgh!!! I thought and couldn't help muttering some heavy insults under my breath. The wave of anger that took me was so severe it shook my whole body. I felt better for it, but immediately after I had finished swearing, I realized that my little fit had been caught on the cameras of the Chinese embassy, which I just happened to have walked past.

Realization struck me like lightning: the people watching the cameras ( and I know my luck, there MUST have been someone watching; after all, this is the Chinese we're talking about, they watch over what their people do in bed, I'm sure they watch everything) couldn't see the reason for my little outrage as the smoking lady was about five paces in front of me. They only saw me talking (to myself apparently) and shaking my head. And I saw how easily the pages turn: you let yourself go for just half a second, you lose your grip for just a split moment and before you can say "fool's asylum" YOU are the freak!

But then again, the wheels on the bus go round and round and a mere week later, buses and underground are back on track and stepping outside you could feel the city relaxing. Traffic was back to normal, so was the amount of jerk cyclists (about 100 a mile) and nobody seemed to be beating each other up more than normally.
I took the general euphoria ("hooray, I can go to work again... sigh") as a reason to go out and celebrate my new "spring is coming soon - or so I hope" haircut!



So I joined a couple of the most lovable creatures (Cons and her gang) and we went out. The evening brought roast chicken first and then, for the first time in bloody ages, we went out dancing! And what a dance it was! We made the dancefloor ours, we swept, we rocked, we floated, we whirled - I hadn't enjoyed myself that way in years (or so it felt); at the end of the night I was high on adrenaline and Euphoria and cose to a heart attack due to exhaustion.

And when the DJ finally bade us leave, I was askd out by a very cute, blonde, charming young ... girl.
Maybe it took my new haircut a mere day to get me chatted up by a girl, but maybe, and that is obviously much more likely, I was just pure irresistible that night.

I told her maybe next time and you now what: I'm looking forward to next time.
I love life.