the world has turned and left me here

mount sinai

Minor failures from this weekend that are worthy of mention: dying my hair purple, and quitting coffee. I kind of suspected that I would have to bleach my hair first before dying it and now I know for sure. It had absolutely no effect. Went without coffee all day Saturday--the first coffeeless day I've had in I don't know how long--and could have gone longer had I wanted to. But I went to one of my favorite spots in Munich, a little rooftop cafe near the center of the city called the Cafe Glockenspiel after I had proved it to myself.

West Munich is a place of despair, a bit like the Piranesi carceri that is Berlin. Run down, overcrowded, abandoned old train stations, tangles of machinery and wires that have no readily apparent purpose, a slowly fungating urban sprawl.

This weekend has been insanely windy at times. As a result of this there was a fierce sky overhead as I was sitting in the Cafe Glockenspiel, and I dashed out and over to one of the bell towers, where you can look out over the city for only 1 Euro.

As the sun set in the west only a glowing vent of orange on the horizon was visible, an angry rent torn between land and sky. And then the strongest wind I have ever felt set in. Yes, stronger even than the Bernoulli effect blasts that punish you for attending your class in Oldfather during winter at UNL. To me it seemed like the end of the world, or at least it would have been a fitting time to end the world if drama is any consideration there. From far below, the silly klingy-klanging of bells from the Neues Rathaus sounded. Hubris, I thought.

I returned from this Mount Sinai a little more alive than I was after work Friday. I now consciously attend to my need to heal myself, to repair my sense of reality, after each work week of destroying it in front of a computer.