"expanding bodies" Cologne Travelogue by miromi

the weirdness finally hits hardcore in köln, not so much loneliness, but the fact that i'm this space alien chick in this completey different place and it's very hard for me to participate in more than simple conversations about the weather. Numbingly, everywhere, everybody kind of fits in, meltingly alike, babbling quickly though now I can catch fragments of their conversation. A few months earlier what sounded so mysterious and involved (was that couple fighting? were they in love?) revealed itself to be trivial banalities. "That is too expensive. That is too far, but really! it's exactly like him to act like that."

i wander alone through the bustling night street awakened to another shock. Nothing stays open here late. And what is still open are intimidating bars, with rowdy happy crowds of people, or tourists, and they're the first thing to avoid, me sniffling over too many cocktails and dissolving into my high pitched wavering 14 year old self again. i can see it now! collapsing..! making stupid conversation about the weather, and how I come from New York, and I think Köln is really laid back and cool (it is, just not now) a cheap origami self crushed under the boots of the world.

man, the only thing open here is this gigantic box shaped exhibition hall, and photos of what looks like richard simmons from his childrens shows days. (I remember that, watching it at 3, richard simmons in a creepy nylon suit with all the organs and muscles probably airbrushed onto his sleek fit body, doing cartwheels inside a room made to be like the inside of your heart. soft, pink, vibrant unthreatening body parts.) People flood in and out, all in pairs of course, and I wander in, pay the fee, here I am! wandering exhausted, sleep deprived, hung over and alone.

it's kind of boring. all these models of human bodies and lungs and fetuses everywhere. some of them are grotesquely split into 4 parts. there's a cross section of the body, thin and plasmic and glowing. there's "what could go wrong", the "disease" probably dyed hilighted so it could be seen, pink and weepy or dark ominous spots all over. eating away, glad it's not me there's a child's face sliced from the front, so you can see the mask right behind where the eyelids and nose are.

and then i read that all of it's real, actual humans...

i get really sick, and almost have to run to the bathroom. One of the bodies has his skin flayed, he's holding his skin body in one hand, the rest all muscled and pink and organic below him. but it's not like richard simmons and his spraypainted bodysuit, it looks like slaughterhouse meat. it looks like packaged cubes you buy in the supermarket, or the butcher's shops here with red glistening buttocks and haunches hanging from hooks. Someone here told me that she heard human meat tastes just like pig meat, and I feel really sick. It's all just too overwhelming. I whirl around and see one too many deformed babies. It's time to get outta here.

i'm kind of stumbling out, feeling better though, and my feet hurt against the cobblestones and I'm exhausted and ultra B!tchy but I'm really liking all of it too. As I cross the bridge I'm struck by how much Köln reminds me both of California and Boston. All the teenagers here dressed carefully and so ultra fashionably American, in baggy hip hop pants and skate shoes, i even saw a scary candy raver girl in one of the stores.

But I like Köln... So much more laid back than the other parts of Germany
I'd been to. The Rhine is as big as the Charles in Boston, and I
remember all the times I've visited there and tromped across it at night
when the trains went down, it was such a long time ago. Walking in the
freezing cold, and curling up near my old Orlando friend, sleeping next to
her and watching the boy laying next to her resenting my presence,
jealous, and wanting more than anything for her to fall in love with him
(she wouldn't).

The next day I'm recovered, and stronger, and understanding that I don't have to crumble into sadness and uncertainty every day, just a once in a while in a while, which is OK. Not everybody is so strong that they don't have cracks. Strolling across the bridge again, so high and long, dodging crazy bicyclists. I walk by the Hauptbahnof, where all the certifiably degenerate and cool punk boys hang out, and catch a glimpse of very young young blonde girls with black lipstick standing bored self consciosly, a studied sneer on their mouths, and I smile broadly and stupidly back at them. They look back at me like I can't possible be that cool, and I shrug, feeling that that place was a long time ago but still very close.