Words of Interest

I have spent most of the weekend with Arakin and Ben, whose friend Dark Wolf was staying over. We had never met, but we have been speaking online, while he also seems to share a number of old school friends. He arrived on Thursday evening and we decided to go out on Friday, with Pizza Rosso at Alexanderplatz being the destination of choice. This was largely done at Dark Wolf's request, but it's also far easier for me to get to than out where Arakin and Ben live, which is about two hours from me point to point. I was a little skeptical about whether the restaurant would be any good, with it being tourist central, but it turned out to be most excellent. The bruschetta tasted fresh and the salami pizza was satisfying. Only the bread as an entre could have been improved. The staff were also very friendly and it's definitely a place I'd take friends to, should we need something good when doing the tourist sights. What with it being Halloween, there were many people in costumes out, which was wonderful to see, but alas my friends didn't really want to stay out past the meal so I got back home at 10pm.

Saturday was the start of November and it was an incredibly down day. Wolfie's foot has struggled to recover since The Offspring concert on Monday, meaning he wasn't able to come to Qualgeist. I had suggested going with Dark Wolf, but he didn't fancy it in the end, and although I could have done at Al Song's request, I feel there's no point going to a BDSM dungeon if there's no-one to play with. This part of my life, like my sex life in general, is feeling incredibly unfulfilled right now and it's getting frustrating. My chronic tiredness is not helping though and yesterday was certainly a day of immense fatigue. After writing off the munch, in the end, I hopped on a bus and checked out the Johannistift Evangelical commune, which is about 20 minutes away. This has been on my list of places to visit for quite some time, and is basically Spandau's equivalent of the Moravian Settlement in Pudsey. It seems to be a dedicated religious community focused around a central square upon which sits a neat little church. There's some interesting steel modern art structures dotted around which looked like something out of the 1980s, while the brick buildings were all rather neat and well-aligned. I enjoyed just wandering around and was interested to note that this area wasn't too far beyond my previous walking limits. I did try and walk back to home from there, but halfway through the fatigue really hit me, and I ended up catching the bus then going to bed for two hours.

When you are this tired, rousing yourself early is difficult, but this is what I did on Sunday with the aim of going around to Arakin and Ben's place. As I mentioned, they live about two hours from me, having moved to the far south-east of the city just over a year ago. I had never been to their house and it is a rather nice three-floor semi-detached home, very in keeping in the German style. They have a bus stop right outside their house, which is convenient, while passing through Köpenick meant I could take the S3 most of the way. The roadworks are still there outside Köpenick station but it was interesting to note that they may have finished the roof work at Ostbahnhof. The new station without the wood and scaffolding looks a lot airier and pleasant than it looked before, not to mention lighter.

We met at Presso Cafe & Lounge, a place familiar to both Arakin and Ben, where I picked up a Fritz Cola and some delicious scrambled egg and ham. This was served with a bread roll and it made for the perfect brunch. The cafe was definitely family-owned and the lady knew my friends, so it did feel rather homely. After this, we headed back to Arakin and Ben's for a few beers and a chat, before the usual flicking through YouTube. It was great catching up with everyone, even if the beers did start to hit me quite hard due to the tiredness. By 5pm, we all fancied some dinner, so we headed into Köpenick for Indian food, again at a place recommended by my friends called Aao Ji. They had only been here once, it turned out, three days ago, but they felt it worth a visit. I did enjoy the mango lassi, but perhaps my curry choice wasn't the best. It was a little like Indian mushroom soup, with no spice whatsoever, so I think next time I'll choose something else. Dark Wolf is heading back to the Netherlands tomorrow and with a near two-hour journey to get back to Spandau, we decided to split after this. I walked back to the S-Bahn station at Köpenick and then hopped on the trains I needed to get back home. Once back, I crashed again, only just waking up two hours later. 

Very little has happened this week, but I have decided I want to move away from some of my current clients as soon as possible. Since starting editing for Fenris, I have realised that this is what I want to do - write and edit fiction and non-fiction - rather than tedious marketing work. It may take some time to transition and I'm aware that I'll probably have to take on a few corporate clients, but I am working towards re-orientating my client base so I can focus on the things I really want to do. I am sick of feeling hollow with my professional situation and want to start feeling pride in what I'm doing again, which is something I haven't had for a few years now. I'm hoping to make the transition quickly as I also think it will improve my mental health.

The only thing that's happened this week is I met up with Notefox and Snowi at Schneeeule. This brewery and bar dedicated to sour beers is sadly closing after nine years and I regret not visiting it more often, even if it is in Rehberge in the far north of the city. Notefox mentioned it on the Beer Meet Chat and so I decided to accompany him. Sadly, Wolfie didn't come down as he thought it may turn into a drinking session. This didn't really happen, although we did end up sharing a few special beers with the kindly owner, and this resulted in us staying an hour and a half after closing. She was giving away all beer in her cellar for free, while the beers packed into boxes in the main bar area were available at discounted rates. Most of them didn't have labels on, but she knew what was what due to the colour of the bottle caps. I just bought ones with labels on, including some rare ones that will no doubt form part of our Christmas drinking. My box ended up costing €30, but I gave her €50 on account of the place closing (we had to pay in cash and this resulted in a trip to the Sparkasse where Notefox's bank was playing silly buggers). It will be a sad loss as I've never known a bar dedicated exclusively to sour beers, but considering this was only the second time I had been there, I can't really complain about its closure. She has loads of beer left though and so she may do a few tastings sometime, which I'll keep an eye out for. It was also good to see Snowi again, who is excited about passing her probation at Wolfie's place of work, so all in all a good day. I didn't get back home until 9:30pm though and Wolfie was quite hungry, which I felt a little bad about.

This week is Brewdog's Collab Beer Fest and had we been in Leeds, we would have gone. Yet, now they have closed the final Leeds bar, of course we wouldn't. And due to Brexit, the Berlin bars aren't running it either. My view of Brewdog may have shrunk considerably in ten years, but this seems to be a perfect encapsulation of how things are not as good as they used to be. It's a minor point of course, but certainly one that seems quite pertinent this weekend. I suppose that would at least reduce my weight gain - I am very conscious of becoming larger as I don't do as much exercise as I used to. I used to do 10,000 steps religiously, but with other pressures on my time, I'm barely hitting 8,000 a day now. I don't think I'm drinking more than I used to, but I'm probably snacking more. I do need to work on my weight, but I have been saying this for years. I think it would really boost my meager self-belief if I could slim down though.

Aside from that, I am starting to get the passion to write again, although it's coming on slowly. The last few months have seen rejection after rejection, and it has all knocked my confidence somewhat. I'm also really tired, consumed by worry about a variety of different things. I didn't sleep well during the week. I am hoping to kick start things again soon after an encouraging writers' group meet on Friday. I was going to do some writing today, but the trip to Schneeeuele overtook things. Maybe tomorrow, when the weather is poor. At least we also get a lie-in what with the clocks going back, although it's depressing to think that winter is finally here. Today's weather was a portent for the next few months and it's hard to keep one's spirits up really. I suppose I've just got to get through it.