I think my dad is the one person in my life who I think I most like to be around, apart from foreigners or friends of my age. I say this because he has changed - when during my schizophrenia I couldn't bear teasing or ironic/sarcastic remarks I told this to my dad, and after a while he seriously tried to avoid these things and always be gentle with me. That's really good - someone who changes his behaviour just to really help you relax.
Dad is rather small and very fat. He has a big round head, and quite a nose. Large ears. Only little hair left on the head, but very hairy all over the rest of his body. Except the face, he can't stand to have a beard, no matter how often I tell him how good he'd look with it.
In his job he's been a boss or manager most of the time, and that shows. Even in my relation with him he usually likes to be objective and to focus on telling me what would be the right thing for me to do.
Sometimes my dad becomes very soft, when I catch him in the right situation and time. He then tells about his life, about nature which he loves very much and knows well. He had a good education, but stopped keeping up with understanding art and other cultural things. For instance he really hates modern art, like expressionism, abstract art, cubism. He doesn't understand these things and has some crooked associations regarding them, else he'd really know that these kinds of art mean him no harm. He simply believes that art is only there to help people feel better, to give them something neat to look at.
He loves to work in the garden, and to often take a seat to watch his little paradise he had created. He raises all kinds of flowers, and earlier had rabbits. He knows the names of all kinds of plants, insects, and birds. He often whistles old tunes or selfmade ones, and he's very good at that. He usually keeps some beer in his garage, safely stored away from my mother who doesn't like to see people drink. Never at all saw my dad drunk once, though. His garage is a nice little mess. He is not very gifted at it, but he tries to do on his own all the things a house owner must do. "That's necessary, Daniel. It needs to be done.", is what he often says.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.9.04 my friend Jens
I know Jens for a long time, and currently he is pretty much my only irl friend. Outwardly, he looks very odd, looks very unique. He is of average height and a quite weighty man. Actually, over the past years I observed how he became a man and ceased being a boy. I saw that most clearly at his recent wedding ... he looked pretty tough in his wedding suit. Okay, that was just a picture and wearing some suit doesn't make one a man. But at that time it really looked as if he was wearing a suit like men wear them.
We became real friends in 8th grade in school. We both had quite a stuttering problem, were somewhat shy and insecure. Jens was somewhat different in his insecurity since he had been able to be angry. When I had been teased by my barbaric classmates I was usually frightened because of that, and got very nervous, at times I even shivered and my knees got weak. Jens got angry, no matter how ridiculous that looked, regardless of the angryness being the spectacle which might have been the main reason for the boys to tease and bother him. Not knowing how to fight he fought back nonetheless. I only realized that recently, after somehow finding a new admiration for angryness for which I didn't know a reason at first, I only knew it was good and proper.
Jens and me spend many times playing with our computers in our youth. Jens was more into computers generally, I was more into the games. I think I treated them as a surrogate for something, for Jens it was a real hobby.
Jens has long red hair and a red beard. He likes to wear a hat and a long coat. For a time people told him that he'd look angrier and more repelling than he actually was.
We used to go to the cinema together quite often, and I'm a bit sorry that we might not continue this anymore since now Jens got a girl by his side. Not that his wife is hard to be around with, I think it just wouldn't be the same anymore. Perhaps I'm too sceptic though ... as we haven't gone out together since the wedding and I don't know how it could be.
Sometimes, quite rarely, Jens writes. Pieces of prose, now and then a poem. I don't think Jens regards himself as a writer, though. He likes Scifi and amusing fantasy from Terry Pratchett. He's got quite a collection of films which I sometimes plunder.
He can be a bit slow at times, and that often felt to me like it was a request for me to take charge of the time we spend together. Sometimes I think that's just so in our friendship, with other friends Jens doesn't seem to have that problem.
I'm a bit sorry because sometimes it seems that my periods of schizophrenia have damaged our friendship. When I was with him back then I often went to his computer immediately to chat or post insane messages ... and ignore Jens. What I think I have learned is that friendship requires adaptation ... and it's simply asked too much of a sane person to adapt to a schizophrenic one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------