01.01.2024

I am with D. and coming over to help with something for F. What exactly, I don’t know.

02.01.2024

I’m playing as an actor in a play. I’m travelling along the Avenue de Tervuren in a wheelchair by pushing myself along on a fender. I have no lights and as I drive into the Gleimtunnel I’m afraid I won’t be seen. I push myself over the crash barrier onto the pavement. Then I find myself in a ski gondola, where we discuss our acting performances. The director says that I was too private in one scene. At first I disagree, but then I understand. We’re about to rehearse the scene again. I’m afraid, afraid of blushing.

03.01.2024

I want to repair a VW Beetle and hold a Lego model in my hands for reference. I meet N. in Cannes. He has dark black hair and a fine moustache. He is dancing with others. I tell him about my project to renovate a VW Beetle. He shows me his renovated car, which looks impressive compared to the model in my hands. My brother arrives, and we hug and kiss. H. looks puzzled. She found my brother attractive and is now wondering about us. I tell her that he is my brother and think about how strange it would be if he had an affair with her. I fly and then land near a man who can help my brother and me with the renovation of the VW Beetle. He is well known and wealthy, showing us pictures on grey cardboard. They look cheap, but he makes a big deal out of it, and my brother and I put on a show to convince him to help us. He says he can assist us with the spare parts for the car. In front of us, there is a parade of old VW Beetles, all looking like they have been professionally restored. I feel like I can’t do something like that.

04.01.2024

I’m standing in a queue. Behind me is Nick Cave. I don’t turn round but I know he’s wearing an elegant suit. I’m not that smartly dressed. I stroke Y.‘s hair and then N.‘s to show how much I love them. Electronic music is playing but I don’t move to it. When I finally turn around, I realise it’s not Nick Cave at all.

05.01.2024

06.01.2024

I look out of a window. Downstairs, a musician with lots of instruments comes out of a bar. He wanted to play inside but another band was already there. Now he’s accompanying the music from the street. We set the lights for the first scene of a play. To do this, we operate light switches that are mounted very high up on the wall. I’m in danger of losing my balance. Someone should make a note of which switches need to be operated. I think of the music I have to make for various films. I’m afraid I won’t make it. Outside I meet U. We hug briefly. He’s organising a festival here called No Time To Lose. I tell him that I’ve founded a group with that name. I explain the concept to him. I have a huge piece of chewing gum in my mouth that I pull out. Again and again. It makes me uncomfortable. I look at C. and wonder if I’m explaining the concept well enough.

07.01.2024

I’m at a new school. It’s huge. Someone shows us around. I have a small box in my hand, it’s full of pens and other things, including an emergency first aid kit. We come to a huge covered square. Roads and trains pass over it. A train descends steeply. Someone cuts salmon with a string and gives me a slice. We arrive in a ship. I was already there as a child. Downstairs is a room that hasn’t been entered for a long time. There are children’s books on the shelves and chess games with very large figures. I get nostalgic and remember how my father taught me to play chess. There are spider like animals on the floor. As I get closer, they look more like crabs lying dead on the ground.

08.01.2024

We are a big group celebrating my mother’s birthday. I give my mobile phone to someone on the street to take a picture of us. I’m sitting on the ground with my hood up. I lift it up a little so that I can be seen better. Then I look for my trousers. They’re in a shop.

I have to rewrite a maths exam. A second one too. The teacher isn’t friendly. I ask him where I have to retake the maths test. That upsets him. He says it’s written on the paper. I’m scared because I’m not sufficiently prepared. S. says he might be able to help me with the second exam but he isn’t sure. The teacher shows me some of the questions from the second exam. Tasks with plus and minus. I don’t understand these questions either and they make me even more insecure for the first exam. I should have been better prepared. I think of my father. The exam starts in a room on the first floor. I hope that I will somehow be able to solve the tasks. The questions are in front of me. There are copper discs laid out like piano keys. I don’t understand the questions and I’m scared. I’m also scared of the second exam.

09.01.2024

I am on an island, walking along paths. I am separated from my group in the midst of crowds of people. Will I find the others again? I see an article about U on several pages of a newspaper. I take photos of the pages and want to send them to her with the words: To my friend U. I continue walking on my socks to an old building and slip in through an opening. Everything in the building is muddy and covered with concrete. A dog is running around in it full of mud. I look down. The building is a ruin that is being renovated. It goes very, very far down. Two architects are standing there with other people. The architects say they like to barbecue down here and have put up a metal grid. I crawl back out through the opening. My socks are wet now. I call O. He draws an eye with a compass. The picture zooms out and the eye becomes tiny. It’s part of a larger picture of a comic that he’s drawing. O. is wearing garters under his trousers and is lying on a sofa as a model for the painter. He’s upset with me that I want to meet earlier. I say it’s just a suggestion.

10.01.2024

I get into an elevator with two others. I pretend to buy a ticket for the journey on my mobile phone. Ten tickets appear on my phone and I try to push them away. The lift doors close and I think to myself, maybe I can pretend I have a problem with buying a ticket and just don’t pay the trip. I hope I don’t get caught. The lift passes the 12th floor and continues upwards. Someone asks how big the boat down in the harbour is. One hundred and twenty square metres. He jokingly says that he’s going to get one of those. When we get to the top, we drive through the corridor of a hospital. I see a woman in a hospital gown standing there. I watch her secretly through a reflection in the lift window. We continue through the corridor. Young people who had to spend Christmas in hospital are sitting in the corridor. They are close and hugging each other.

11.01.2024

I’m walking outside with my father in law to a restaurant or bistro. He is standing in glaring light. I want to take a photo of him. Three people with Afro hairstyles are in the picture. Then there are three old women. I move on to a pool game. The game takes a long time, someone must have put my balls back in. I was about to finish. Now there are lots of my balls on the table again. I take a few of the balls out of the overfilled pockets and distribute them among the others. Someone comments on what I’m doing. I want to make a trick shot by hitting a rucksack and lobbing it onto a bowl of glowing coals. It falls over and the embers spread across the table. The others clasp their hands over their heads. I coolly shovel the burning coals back into the bowl and add burning sheets of paper.

I make up a story that I want to meet G. I stand in front of a window and write a message that I want to stick on my leather shoe to send G. a photo of it. Through the window I see an Asian woman. Next to her is a piece of paper with a number. But it is not G.’s number.

I’m in a hotel room with my mother. She says that Mr S. has bought the two silo towers. We talk about how she has always left everything behind. She brushes her teeth and I open the door for Y. Y. is surprised that we are in this room. My mother says she misses all the plants. I say, “And the people, the feeling of life that you left behind.” My mother says someone once told her she always ran away from something.

I’m wearing a red wig. I pull the hair over my face and am happy to have hair again.

12.01.2024

I shave my armpits next to my wife.

My therapist asks me lovingly if I actually take care of myself.

13.01.2024

I’m with H. and we’re sitting in front of a multitrack recorder. I explain to him the advantages of a mixing console, how you can record and mix with two record players on a cassette recorder. With R., I prepare a concert in front of a showcase. What are we going to play. S. hands out cassettes of mine.

I’m in a flat that looks like my parents’ flat in Brussels. I think that in the similarity of the flats, my mother lives on in them. I go into the bathroom, which is huge. I undress, smell that I stink and see in the mirror how my stomach is flat and a six pack can be seen. I am delighted. I’ve never seen myself like this before. I turn on the shower but something is wrong. The jets are twisted. I had re hung them. I go into the living room. A whole chorus of people are standing on the shelf and are responsible for the shower. I put on a pair of swimming trunks to avoid standing naked in front of them. Or is it a monokini. I climb a ladder and adjust the jets. I push something through an opening. Water now runs down in front of the choir. Only a Buddha figure touches the wall of water. I would actually feel uncomfortable if so many people had to help me repair the shower but now everything has been repaired. I slide on my stomach across the wooden floor back to the bathroom. I see my taut stomach with a six pack and am happy about it again.

14.01.2024

C. and I want to get a new boat. We drive into a beautiful bay. People are waiting there for a big boat. There’s a new sailing boat in front of us. Could we imagine buying it. Would D. come on this boat. I think so, and H. But the boat shouldn’t be bigger than our current one. C. and I fly over the water to a huge ruin. There’s a big overgrown wreck there. We fly up alongside the ruin and it scares me. The higher we fly, the more terrifying the ruin becomes. I’m afraid of having a panic attack. We fly into a flat in the ruins. There I discover a mouse running across the floor. C. is afraid of it. More and more mice and a squirrel arrive. I open the door and let them out.

I come to a bar or a hotel that is going under. I’m supposed to put lamps up there. For this, I stick a golf pin into a foot. The restaurant will close. It won’t work. But I’ll put up the lamps anyway. One row is already hanging. I’ll take care of the missing ones in a different colour. Even if I only find two where I clip off the cables.

Then my brother’s family and I drive through Arabia in a car. My brother crosses a junction at a red light. A car follows us and the driver makes signs. It’s an ambulance car. I apologise for my brother and say that he has never done anything wrong, not even in Europe. Then I follow the man into a hotel. There are leftover plates of food on the floor of the corridor. I see an ear cleaner in my brother’s things which, on closer inspection, looks different to mine. My brother’s is long and spoon shaped. A boy comes out of a neighbouring room who is so tall that his head almost touches the ceiling. I ask him how long he has been in Arabia. He says ten days and zips up his tracksuit jacket. I react with admiration. He points to his jacket, as if he has already really arrived in Arabia. He also says he has got a wife here. I find that strange and think he is too young for this. He says the AI is also good here in Arabia, so it’s easy to find the next gate. He leaves the hotel via the corridor with his head just under the ceiling.

15.01.2024

There are things written on my body, diseases that I could get. I am in a room with my mother and her brother. I actually want to go home but I also want my mother to have as much time as possible with her brother. We have to wait because there is someone else in the flat we want to go to. A friend shows me a number. It’s one lower than another. I drive back to my basement. Walking down a large winding staircase, I paint along the bottom of the wall with a brush. Downstairs, I realise that the room has not yet been completely renovated. The mattress on the floor has not been made up. The sheets are on it. The names that were on pages on me have now been changed by S.