I walk on the sidewalk, toward Ostkreuz, and notice a brightly lit small Asian supermarket across the street. I change sidewalks and look through the window of the small shop. It is clean, tidy, and well arranged. There seems to be no one inside. I carefully try to open the door. It opens and I enter. There is indeed no one inside. Calm piano music is playing. I walk slowly through the aisles, mesmerized. I take out my camcorder, start to film, but stop shortly after — the aisles are too narrow to get the shot I had in mind.

I continue to browse the snack aisle, pass by the soft drinks, drift toward the seaweed snacks, tempted to buy something from these perfectly arranged, well-designed products. I realize I don’t need anything though and decide not to buy anything.

I walk through the next aisle, back towards the entrance/exit, looking at the products and enjoying the serene atmosphere. Shortly after I arrive at the end of the aisle, a man enters, greets me, and sits down behind the cash register. I finish browsing the last shelf and find one product so interesting that I consider buying it. According to the label, homemade seaweed cookies. No further description. They look like granola nut bars wrapped in seaweed leaves. It is a large pack and I don’t know if I would like them — I decide against buying them and leave the shop.

The Ostkreuz station in sight, I stop at an intersection and admire the sky. I take out my camcorder, stand still and film it for about five minutes.
I proceed to the platform where the S41 will leave. Four minutes until it arrives. I stand on the platform and enjoy the view. The Amazon tower, the TV tower and two or three other tall buildings unify into something you can almost call, at least by Berlin standards, a skyline, with a spectacular backdrop of clouds resembling an avalanche moving sideways in super slow motion.
I get on the S-Bahn and sit down on an empty four-seater. Right behind me sit a woman, around 40, and two children, probably 8 to 10 years old. One of the children starts talking enthusiastically: ’Mom, mom, look at the clouds and the TV tower. Mom, look at them.’ The woman doesn’t react. The child continues: ‘Mom, you have to look at them. Stop looking at your phone.’ The mom replies: ‘Yeah, ok.’ The child again: ‘Mom, you’re addicted to your phone. You gotta look at the clouds. They are so cool.’ The mom replies: ‘I’m just checking something, let me finish. What am I supposed to do about the clouds?’
For the remainder of the train ride, I observe the clouds — ranging from massive, thick, dense, white-gray clouds to subtle, hazy, fading clouds dyed in a red-orange by the sunset. I get off at Schöneberg and take the stairs down to the S1 platform. While I descend the stairs, the S1 arrives. I get on it. It is so crowded that I don’t find an empty seat. Three stops later, I get off at Rathaus Steglitz and go home.

When I arrive at home, I take off my shoes, slip into my slides, put my bag down, and take off my jacket, my fleece zipper, and my vest. I go to the toilet, wash my hands, take out my grillz and unpack my bag, putting everything that is inside back to where it belongs. I change clothes — I put on again my pajama pants and swap the black sweatshirt and black hoodie for the dark blue sweatshirt and the gray hoodie.
I bring water to a boil to prepare rooibos tea. I drink a glass of water, refill it and put it on my desk. I prepare a small glass bowl with a handful of roasted coconut chips coated with cocoa, 17 cashews and 19 almonds. I look through the window of the balcony door into the cloudless sky. It is slowly turning dark blue, no cloud in sight. The moon shines bright, about a third missing until it is full.
I put the tatami mat that is leaning against the wall to the floor, the folded futon on top of it, at one end against the wall so I can lean against it. I get the rooibos tea from the kitchen, return to my room and turn on the heating. I take off my slides and lie down on the tatami mat, against the futon. I cover myself with a gray woolen blanket and process the afternoon outside.

I get up from the tatami mat after a bit more than an hour. I lean the mat back up against the wall, bring the tea mug to the kitchen and put the small glass bowl, which isn’t a bowl but rather a petri dish, back on the sideboard. I fold the blanket I covered myself with and put it on top on off the folded futon. I roll my yoga mat out in the middle of the room, change into large white nurse pants that I still have from my civilian service 16 years ago, take off my socks, and do yoga. Intuitively, into whatever pose my body leads me.
When I get up out of shavasana, I put on socks, change back into my pajama pants and put the white large pants back into the sideboard. I slip into my slides, roll up the yoga mat and put it back in the corner next to the sideboard. I drink the glass of water on my desk, switch off the light in my room, except for the dimmed ceiling lamp, and put my gray hoodie back on, which I had taken off a few minutes after I started doing yoga because the hood bothered me. I take the glass and my laptop from the desk and go to the kitchen.

I switch on the light in the kitchen, put the laptop on the kitchen table, refill my water glass, and leave it on the table as well. I open my laptop, open Spotify, and search for ‘drumless hiphop’.
I find a playlist called drumless hip-hop mix. I start playing it on shuffle, open the fridge, and take one broccoli, one pack of brown mushrooms, one pack of smoked tofu, two medium-sized carrots.
I leave all of this on the countertop, close the fridge, open a kitchen cabinet drawer and take rice noodles [an open pack, a bit less than half of the 400g it contains], sesame oil, gluten-free soy sauce, crunchy peanut butter [unsalted, unsweetened], and rice vinegar. I put this next to what I took out of the fridge, and open the drawer next to the first drawer that I opened. I take out a strainer, which I put in the kitchen sink, and a large pot, a small pot, and a pan. I take a knife out of another drawer and put it on the wooden cutting board that’s already on the countertop. I fill both pots with water.

Three songs into the drumless hip-hop mix playlist, I notice that it isn’t really a drumless hip-hop playlist. The first song that played was drumless, but the two that followed did have drums. I return to the search results and select another playlist. This time, one that wasn’t created by Spotify, but by a user [Harry]. Again, I start playing it on shuffle.
The dishwasher is almost full. What I will use to cook will not fit — therefore, I start it now so I can empty it before going to bed and have space to load it with what I use now. I add what is left in the open pack of rice noodles to the large pot. I turn the stove to medium heat for the pan and first clean, then chop the mushrooms in half or quarters, depending on their size. I add a few generous splashes of sesame oil to the pan, distribute it evenly, and add the chopped mushrooms. I turn up the heat slightly, and turn on the heat for the small pot [high]. I crack the kitchen window open.

I peel the carrots, cut them into three equal pieces, cut these pieces in half, and slice them thinly. I add the sliced carrots to the pan, stir everything and reduce the heat slightly.
I wash the broccoli, chop off the stem, and cut it into florets. I add the broccoli to the pan, give everything a good stir and realize that the lid for the pan is in the dishwasher that is running. I open the dishwasher, take the lid, close the dishwasher, dry the lid, and cover the pan with it.
I clean and dry the cutting board, knife, and countertop. I remove the rice noodles from the large pot by pouring them into the strainer in the sink. I rinse and dry the big pot and put it back into the kitchen drawer. I do the same with the lid of the small pot — the water inside is boiling now. I add the strained rice noodles.
I check the time — it is 7:24PM. I cut the smoked tofu into cubes roughly the size of the tip of my thumb. I clean and dry the peeler, stir the vegetables in the pan, and check the time again — it is 7:27PM. I turn off the heat for the small pot, strain the rice noodles in the kitchen sink and rinse them with cold water. I rinse the small pot and clean it with a sponge, dry it, and put it back in the kitchen drawer. It seems like I will not need an empty dishwasher. I give the vegetables in the pan another stir.

I bring water to a boil in the kettle, and get a glass measuring cup out of another kitchen drawer. I add 23 splashes of sesame oil and two eyeballed pours of gluten-free soy sauce — combined a bit less than 100 ml — four splashes of rice vinegar, and two generous forks of peanut butter. The measuring cup is filled a bit more than 200 ml. I fill it up with boiling water, up until roughly 350 ml, and stir everything until the peanut butter is dissolved. I add the smoked tofu and the sauce to the pan and mix everything thoroughly. I turn off the heat and let it simmer while I clean the cutting board and the knife and put them, as well as the sesame oil, the soy sauce and the rice vinegar, back into their places.
I add the noodles to the pan, mix everything thoroughly again and let the noodles absorb the sauce while I clean, dry, and stow away the strainer and the lid of the pan. I close the kitchen window, pause the music [at least half of the songs in the playlist did contain drums], close the laptop, and put half of what is inside the pan in a large bamboo bowl. I sprinkle white sesame seeds on top, sit down at the kitchen table, and eat.

Once the bowl is empty, I get up from the kitchen table and open the window fully. I transfer what is left in the pan into a food container and put the container in the fridge. I clean and dry the pan, the glass measuring cup, the bamboo bowl and the fork I ate with and put them back into the places where they belong. I go to the toilet, back to the kitchen, refill my glass of water and close the kitchen window. I switch off the light in the kitchen, take the glass and the laptop, and bring them back to my desk. I drink the glass of water, put on my vest, my fleece zipper, and my jacket. I take my shoes, put them on right outside of the apartment and go on a walk. I walk the same route that I usually walk in the evening with A. and C., or sometimes just C. when A. is not at home. At the moment, both of them are gone. I am all by myself.

When I return from the walk, I take off my shoes and slide into my slippers. I go to the kitchen, switch on the light, fill the kettle with water and switch it on as well. I go to my room, take off my jacket, my fleece zipper, and my vest. I go back to the kitchen, take a thumb-sized piece of ginger out of the fridge and cut it in half. One half goes back into the fridge, and I peel the other half with a teaspoon. I cut the peeled ginger first into thin slices and then the thin slices into fine sticks. I take a mug out of the dishwasher that just opened itself, add the ginger sticks, and fill it with hot water. I clean and dry the knife and the cutting board that I just used and put them back into place, and unload the dishwasher. I put half a teaspoon of honey in the mug, stir it and take it to my room. I close the door.

I switch on the lamps on the nightstand and on the sideboard, open my laptop, connect it to the speakers, open YouTube and play Loscil live at Fluister.

Tonight, I will begin with an inventory of my room. I take a sip of my hot ginger and start with checking what is on the sideboard [which belongs to A.]. Before I do so, I take note of what is right next to the sideboard, in the small space between it and the end of the room:

• yoga mat [black — Liforme]
• MIDI keyboard [49 keys — miditech]

On top of the sideboard, on the far left, is:

• foldable plastic box [gray — HAY]

Inside of this box are:

• headphones [Sony MDR7506] — inside a black pouch
• pack of vitamin supplements [Immusan C800 — open]
• rubber band [red] -> don’t need it
• iPhone charger [plug and cable — non-original fabric cable]
• USB-A to USB-B cable [to connect the MIDI keyboard]
• pack of tissues [half-full]
• daily planner for 2026
• pack of 3 highlighters + 1 marker [STABILO BOSS ORIGINAL NatureCOLORS — unopened]
• lightbulb [unsure if it works] -> don’t need it
• small metal box [black] containing memorabilia [among others: photos, Canadian dollars, sodapaapi stickers, bottle caps]
• small plastic container that contains:
  • ING debit card [never in use]
  • travel adapter for North [?] America
  • PRESTO card -> don’t need it
  • wooden golf tee
  • rubber band [orange] -> don’t need it
  • paper clip -> don’t need it
  • 2 safety pins -> don’t need them
  • thumb drive [black, plastic, 32 GB — Sandisk]
  • 3.5 mm to ¼-inch headphone adapter
  • 4 passport photos [taken ca. 2021] -> don’t need them
  • FL Studio thumb drive 
  • Sia Sola [solitary board game]

I put what I don’t need on the floor, next to the door of my room, and take a few more sips of my notably cooled-down ginger infusion. I continue noting what is on the sideboard, next to the gray foldable plastic box:

• stack of A Path Of Being At Peace/The Soda Club business cards [120 cards/3 full sets — unnumbered]
• lamp [dark brown wood corpus, 2 spiky glass balls with one lightbulb in each]
• 2 glass jars [500 ml — one filled with cashews, one filled with almonds]
• glass bowl/petri dish
• small mug [gray with blue squares, made by A.]
• vase [white with floral patterns — unsure if it belongs to me; I believe A. found it on the street]
• water bottle [black, 18OZ/532ml — Klean Kanteen]
• instant camera [Polaroid Impulse — belongs to A.]
• notebook large [black — disconnect episodes 020-034]
• notebook small [black — 2025/06/06 - 2025/10/05 journal]
  

I take the last sips of my lukewarm ginger infusion and continue the inventory of what is on top of the sideboard — two stacks of books, all the way on the right side.

First stack, from top to bottom:

• Surreal Spaces. The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington - Joanna Moorhead
• Non-Places - Marc Augé
• walking meditations - Danielle North
• Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
• The Creative Act - Rick Rubin
• Almond - Won-Pyung Sohn
• King Bongo - Thomas Sanchez
• Bleeding Edge - Thomas Pynchon

Second stack, from top to bottom:

• Quantum Listening - Pauline Oliveros -> not yet read
• Perspective and Other Optical Illusions - Phoebe McNaughton -> not yet read
• The Word for World Is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin -> not yet read
• Quantum Dreaming - IONE -> not yet read
• Why I Make Documentaries - Soda Kazuhiro [wrapped in plastic foil, unopened] -> not yet read
• air - J.J. Zana -> not yet read
• I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman -> not yet read
• The Blazing World - Margaret Cavendish
• Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books - Georges Perec
• Orbital - Samantha Harvey
• The City and Its Uncertain Walls - Haruki Murakami
• The Lie of the Truth - René Daumal
• Nanotechnology. A Very Short Introduction - Philip Moriarty
• Year of the Monkey - Patti Smith
• The Lonely City - Olivia Laing
• Pretentiousness - Dan Fox
• Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel

This is everything that is on top of the sideboard.

To its right, on the floor, is a large beige laundry basket. It doesn’t belong to me, but to A. However, since she doesn’t have space for it in her room, it is in my room and we share it. I check what is inside that belongs to me:

• pair of socks [white]
• boxer shorts [black]
• bedsheet [beige]
• duvet cover [gray]
• bathing towel [gray]
• hand/face towel [gray]

The laundry basket stands in front of a door that separates my and A.’s rooms [the door doesn’t have a handle so it can’t be opened]. On the door hangs a light gray aluminum frame. There is nothing inside but the brown cardboard back and a passepartout.

The Loscil live set ends, which is the sign for me to end the inventory for today. I throw away the old passport photos and the PRESTO card, and put the golf tee, the lightbulb, the rubber bands, the safety pins, and the paper clip in the left drawer of my desk, knowing that there are more small things that I probably don’t know exactly what to do with. I bring the mug I drank the ginger infusion out of to the kitchen, throw the ginger sticks into the organic waste bin, and wash and dry the mug and the spoon and put them back into the drawers where they belong.
I go back into my room, charge my camcorder which I left on my desk instead of putting it back into the left drawer of the desk [where it usually is], and sit down at my desk. I turn off the speakers, close the laptop, open the laptop again. I close the browser, open the notes app, then the document with the 40 Nights in Toronto article for the Marŝarto awards open, so I will already look at what I need when I open the laptop tomorrow morning.

I take my daily planner as well as my all-purpose notebook, which I used to plan the schedule for my three perfect days, out of the desk’s right drawer. I open the daily planner and cross out everything I did until now, since I left for lunch. I turn the page and prepare tomorrow. I don’t copy the schedule 1:1 from my notebook into my planner. I am uncertain of a few things. I don’t know exactly why.
I close the notebook and put it back into the desk’s right drawer. I open the door to the balcony and go to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, floss my teeth, pee, wash my hands, wash my face, put lotion on my face, and take off my necklace.
I switch off the light in the hallway, go back to my room, close the door behind me first, then the balcony door, as well as the curtains. I sit down at the desk again, to have another look at the schedule I wrote down for tomorrow. Looking at it now, I am happy with it. I close my daily planner, open the desk’s right drawer, and take out the 40 NiT promo notebook that I will need tomorrow morning when I continue to edit the article for the Marŝarto Awards. I put the daily planner in the drawer and close it.

I unplug the camera charger and put it, along with the camcorder, back into the desk’s left drawer. I switch off the lamp on the sideboard, put the tatami mat from the wall to the floor, and roll out the futon on top of it. I take a bedsheet out of the sideboard, along with the duvet and the pillow. I cover the futon with the sheet and put the duvet and the pillow on top, as well as the gray blanket that I left temporarily on the desk while I set up my bed.
I take off my pants, my socks, my hoodie, and my sweatshirt, and store them in the sideboard. Except for the socks, which I leave on top of the slippers, so I can wear them tomorrow morning, before I wear fresh socks after taking a shower.
I take my phone charger, plug it into the outlet and into my phone, set an alarm to 7AM and tuck myself into bed. I read 1.5 pages of A Course in Miracles and fill one page of my evening journal notebook:

2025/12/30          145/237  live in your own world.
                                                  [presence]

when i woke up this morning, i had the intuitive idea to keep track of my day by recording speech-to text notes of everything i do.
it was a fun experiment, yet, it became exhausting toward the end of the day. i became aware of every single detail and small task i completed and now i understand why even when i have a day that is full of things i enjoy and love, i am exhausted at the end of it — bc the day is/was full — it’s that simple. [today, even fuller bc recording the notes accumulated and added more to my plate than i would have thought when i started it — i first had the idea of doing it for all three perfect days but i’ll stop now. after the first one.]

I switch off the dimmed ceiling lamp and the lamp on my nightstand, and close my eyes.

PS: disconnect 039/237 - Perfect Day 1/3 [Part I] and disconnect 040/237 - Perfect Day 1/3 [Part II] were inspired by the movie Peter Hujar’s Day.

PPS: After 40 Nights in Toronto was shortlisted for the Marŝarto Awards 2025, I was invited by walk · listen · create to share the story behind the project and insights into its creation. You can read it here: Spaziergang On An Empty Canvas

I walk on the sidewalk, toward Ostkreuz, and notice a brightly lit small Asian supermarket across the street. I change sidewalks and look through the window of the small shop. It is clean, tidy, and well arranged. There seems to be no one inside. I carefully try to open the door. It opens and I enter. There is indeed no one inside. Calm piano music is playing. I walk slowly through the aisles, mesmerized. I take out my camcorder, start to film, but stop shortly after — the aisles are too narrow to get the shot I had in mind.

I continue to browse the snack aisle, pass by the soft drinks, drift toward the seaweed snacks, tempted to buy something from these perfectly arranged, well-designed products. I realize I don’t need anything though and decide not to buy anything.

I walk through the next aisle, back towards the entrance/exit, looking at the products and enjoying the serene atmosphere. Shortly after I arrive at the end of the aisle, a man enters, greets me, and sits down behind the cash register. I finish browsing the last shelf and find one product so interesting that I consider buying it. According to the label, homemade seaweed cookies. No further description. They look like granola nut bars wrapped in seaweed leaves. It is a large pack and I don’t know if I would like them — I decide against buying them and leave the shop.

The Ostkreuz station in sight, I stop at an intersection and admire the sky. I take out my camcorder, stand still and film it for about five minutes.
I proceed to the platform where the S41 will leave. Four minutes until it arrives. I stand on the platform and enjoy the view. The Amazon tower, the TV tower and two or three other tall buildings unify into something you can almost call, at least by Berlin standards, a skyline, with a spectacular backdrop of clouds resembling an avalanche moving sideways in super slow motion.
I get on the S-Bahn and sit down on an empty four-seater. Right behind me sit a woman, around 40, and two children, probably 8 to 10 years old. One of the children starts talking enthusiastically: ’Mom, mom, look at the clouds and the TV tower. Mom, look at them.’ The woman doesn’t react. The child continues: ‘Mom, you have to look at them. Stop looking at your phone.’ The mom replies: ‘Yeah, ok.’ The child again: ‘Mom, you’re addicted to your phone. You gotta look at the clouds. They are so cool.’ The mom replies: ‘I’m just checking something, let me finish. What am I supposed to do about the clouds?’
For the remainder of the train ride, I observe the clouds — ranging from massive, thick, dense, white-gray clouds to subtle, hazy, fading clouds dyed in a red-orange by the sunset. I get off at Schöneberg and take the stairs down to the S1 platform. While I descend the stairs, the S1 arrives. I get on it. It is so crowded that I don’t find an empty seat. Three stops later, I get off at Rathaus Steglitz and go home.

When I arrive at home, I take off my shoes, slip into my slides, put my bag down, and take off my jacket, my fleece zipper, and my vest. I go to the toilet, wash my hands, take out my grillz and unpack my bag, putting everything that is inside back to where it belongs. I change clothes — I put on again my pajama pants and swap the black sweatshirt and black hoodie for the dark blue sweatshirt and the gray hoodie.
I bring water to a boil to prepare rooibos tea. I drink a glass of water, refill it and put it on my desk. I prepare a small glass bowl with a handful of roasted coconut chips coated with cocoa, 17 cashews and 19 almonds. I look through the window of the balcony door into the cloudless sky. It is slowly turning dark blue, no cloud in sight. The moon shines bright, about a third missing until it is full.
I put the tatami mat that is leaning against the wall to the floor, the folded futon on top of it, at one end against the wall so I can lean against it. I get the rooibos tea from the kitchen, return to my room and turn on the heating. I take off my slides and lie down on the tatami mat, against the futon. I cover myself with a gray woolen blanket and process the afternoon outside.

I get up from the tatami mat after a bit more than an hour. I lean the mat back up against the wall, bring the tea mug to the kitchen and put the small glass bowl, which isn’t a bowl but rather a petri dish, back on the sideboard. I fold the blanket I covered myself with and put it on top on off the folded futon. I roll my yoga mat out in the middle of the room, change into large white nurse pants that I still have from my civilian service 16 years ago, take off my socks, and do yoga. Intuitively, into whatever pose my body leads me.
When I get up out of shavasana, I put on socks, change back into my pajama pants and put the white large pants back into the sideboard. I slip into my slides, roll up the yoga mat and put it back in the corner next to the sideboard. I drink the glass of water on my desk, switch off the light in my room, except for the dimmed ceiling lamp, and put my gray hoodie back on, which I had taken off a few minutes after I started doing yoga because the hood bothered me. I take the glass and my laptop from the desk and go to the kitchen.

I switch on the light in the kitchen, put the laptop on the kitchen table, refill my water glass, and leave it on the table as well. I open my laptop, open Spotify, and search for ‘drumless hiphop’.
I find a playlist called drumless hip-hop mix. I start playing it on shuffle, open the fridge, and take one broccoli, one pack of brown mushrooms, one pack of smoked tofu, two medium-sized carrots.
I leave all of this on the countertop, close the fridge, open a kitchen cabinet drawer and take rice noodles [an open pack, a bit less than half of the 400g it contains], sesame oil, gluten-free soy sauce, crunchy peanut butter [unsalted, unsweetened], and rice vinegar. I put this next to what I took out of the fridge, and open the drawer next to the first drawer that I opened. I take out a strainer, which I put in the kitchen sink, and a large pot, a small pot, and a pan. I take a knife out of another drawer and put it on the wooden cutting board that’s already on the countertop. I fill both pots with water.

Three songs into the drumless hip-hop mix playlist, I notice that it isn’t really a drumless hip-hop playlist. The first song that played was drumless, but the two that followed did have drums. I return to the search results and select another playlist. This time, one that wasn’t created by Spotify, but by a user [Harry]. Again, I start playing it on shuffle.
The dishwasher is almost full. What I will use to cook will not fit — therefore, I start it now so I can empty it before going to bed and have space to load it with what I use now. I add what is left in the open pack of rice noodles to the large pot. I turn the stove to medium heat for the pan and first clean, then chop the mushrooms in half or quarters, depending on their size. I add a few generous splashes of sesame oil to the pan, distribute it evenly, and add the chopped mushrooms. I turn up the heat slightly, and turn on the heat for the small pot [high]. I crack the kitchen window open.

I peel the carrots, cut them into three equal pieces, cut these pieces in half, and slice them thinly. I add the sliced carrots to the pan, stir everything and reduce the heat slightly.
I wash the broccoli, chop off the stem, and cut it into florets. I add the broccoli to the pan, give everything a good stir and realize that the lid for the pan is in the dishwasher that is running. I open the dishwasher, take the lid, close the dishwasher, dry the lid, and cover the pan with it.
I clean and dry the cutting board, knife, and countertop. I remove the rice noodles from the large pot by pouring them into the strainer in the sink. I rinse and dry the big pot and put it back into the kitchen drawer. I do the same with the lid of the small pot — the water inside is boiling now. I add the strained rice noodles.
I check the time — it is 7:24PM. I cut the smoked tofu into cubes roughly the size of the tip of my thumb. I clean and dry the peeler, stir the vegetables in the pan, and check the time again — it is 7:27PM. I turn off the heat for the small pot, strain the rice noodles in the kitchen sink and rinse them with cold water. I rinse the small pot and clean it with a sponge, dry it, and put it back in the kitchen drawer. It seems like I will not need an empty dishwasher. I give the vegetables in the pan another stir.

I bring water to a boil in the kettle, and get a glass measuring cup out of another kitchen drawer. I add 23 splashes of sesame oil and two eyeballed pours of gluten-free soy sauce — combined a bit less than 100 ml — four splashes of rice vinegar, and two generous forks of peanut butter. The measuring cup is filled a bit more than 200 ml. I fill it up with boiling water, up until roughly 350 ml, and stir everything until the peanut butter is dissolved. I add the smoked tofu and the sauce to the pan and mix everything thoroughly. I turn off the heat and let it simmer while I clean the cutting board and the knife and put them, as well as the sesame oil, the soy sauce and the rice vinegar, back into their places.
I add the noodles to the pan, mix everything thoroughly again and let the noodles absorb the sauce while I clean, dry, and stow away the strainer and the lid of the pan. I close the kitchen window, pause the music [at least half of the songs in the playlist did contain drums], close the laptop, and put half of what is inside the pan in a large bamboo bowl. I sprinkle white sesame seeds on top, sit down at the kitchen table, and eat.

Once the bowl is empty, I get up from the kitchen table and open the window fully. I transfer what is left in the pan into a food container and put the container in the fridge. I clean and dry the pan, the glass measuring cup, the bamboo bowl and the fork I ate with and put them back into the places where they belong. I go to the toilet, back to the kitchen, refill my glass of water and close the kitchen window. I switch off the light in the kitchen, take the glass and the laptop, and bring them back to my desk. I drink the glass of water, put on my vest, my fleece zipper, and my jacket. I take my shoes, put them on right outside of the apartment and go on a walk. I walk the same route that I usually walk in the evening with A. and C., or sometimes just C. when A. is not at home. At the moment, both of them are gone. I am all by myself.

When I return from the walk, I take off my shoes and slide into my slippers. I go to the kitchen, switch on the light, fill the kettle with water and switch it on as well. I go to my room, take off my jacket, my fleece zipper, and my vest. I go back to the kitchen, take a thumb-sized piece of ginger out of the fridge and cut it in half. One half goes back into the fridge, and I peel the other half with a teaspoon. I cut the peeled ginger first into thin slices and then the thin slices into fine sticks. I take a mug out of the dishwasher that just opened itself, add the ginger sticks, and fill it with hot water. I clean and dry the knife and the cutting board that I just used and put them back into place, and unload the dishwasher. I put half a teaspoon of honey in the mug, stir it and take it to my room. I close the door.

I switch on the lamps on the nightstand and on the sideboard, open my laptop, connect it to the speakers, open YouTube and play Loscil live at Fluister.

Tonight, I will begin with an inventory of my room. I take a sip of my hot ginger and start with checking what is on the sideboard [which belongs to A.]. Before I do so, I take note of what is right next to the sideboard, in the small space between it and the end of the room:

• yoga mat [black — Liforme]
• MIDI keyboard [49 keys — miditech]

On top of the sideboard, on the far left, is:

• foldable plastic box [gray — HAY]

Inside of this box are:

• headphones [Sony MDR7506] — inside a black pouch
• pack of vitamin supplements [Immusan C800 — open]
• rubber band [red] -> don’t need it
• iPhone charger [plug and cable — non-original fabric cable]
• USB-A to USB-B cable [to connect the MIDI keyboard]
• pack of tissues [half-full]
• daily planner for 2026
• pack of 3 highlighters + 1 marker [STABILO BOSS ORIGINAL NatureCOLORS — unopened]
• lightbulb [unsure if it works] -> don’t need it
• small metal box [black] containing memorabilia [among others: photos, Canadian dollars, sodapaapi stickers, bottle caps]
• small plastic container that contains:
  • ING debit card [never in use]
  • travel adapter for North [?] America
  • PRESTO card -> don’t need it
  • wooden golf tee
  • rubber band [orange] -> don’t need it
  • paper clip -> don’t need it
  • 2 safety pins -> don’t need them
  • thumb drive [black, plastic, 32 GB — Sandisk]
  • 3.5 mm to ¼-inch headphone adapter
  • 4 passport photos [taken ca. 2021] -> don’t need them
  • FL Studio thumb drive 
  • Sia Sola [solitary board game]

I put what I don’t need on the floor, next to the door of my room, and take a few more sips of my notably cooled-down ginger infusion. I continue noting what is on the sideboard, next to the gray foldable plastic box:

• stack of A Path Of Being At Peace/The Soda Club business cards [120 cards/3 full sets — unnumbered]
• lamp [dark brown wood corpus, 2 spiky glass balls with one lightbulb in each]
• 2 glass jars [500 ml — one filled with cashews, one filled with almonds]
• glass bowl/petri dish
• small mug [gray with blue squares, made by A.]
• vase [white with floral patterns — unsure if it belongs to me; I believe A. found it on the street]
• water bottle [black, 18OZ/532ml — Klean Kanteen]
• instant camera [Polaroid Impulse — belongs to A.]
• notebook large [black — disconnect episodes 020-034]
• notebook small [black — 2025/06/06 - 2025/10/05 journal]
  

I take the last sips of my lukewarm ginger infusion and continue the inventory of what is on top of the sideboard — two stacks of books, all the way on the right side.

First stack, from top to bottom:

• Surreal Spaces. The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington - Joanna Moorhead
• Non-Places - Marc Augé
• walking meditations - Danielle North
• Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
• The Creative Act - Rick Rubin
• Almond - Won-Pyung Sohn
• King Bongo - Thomas Sanchez
• Bleeding Edge - Thomas Pynchon

Second stack, from top to bottom:

• Quantum Listening - Pauline Oliveros -> not yet read
• Perspective and Other Optical Illusions - Phoebe McNaughton -> not yet read
• The Word for World Is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin -> not yet read
• Quantum Dreaming - IONE -> not yet read
• Why I Make Documentaries - Soda Kazuhiro [wrapped in plastic foil, unopened] -> not yet read
• air - J.J. Zana -> not yet read
• I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman -> not yet read
• The Blazing World - Margaret Cavendish
• Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books - Georges Perec
• Orbital - Samantha Harvey
• The City and Its Uncertain Walls - Haruki Murakami
• The Lie of the Truth - René Daumal
• Nanotechnology. A Very Short Introduction - Philip Moriarty
• Year of the Monkey - Patti Smith
• The Lonely City - Olivia Laing
• Pretentiousness - Dan Fox
• Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel

This is everything that is on top of the sideboard.

To its right, on the floor, is a large beige laundry basket. It doesn’t belong to me, but to A. However, since she doesn’t have space for it in her room, it is in my room and we share it. I check what is inside that belongs to me:

• pair of socks [white]
• boxer shorts [black]
• bedsheet [beige]
• duvet cover [gray]
• bathing towel [gray]
• hand/face towel [gray]

The laundry basket stands in front of a door that separates my and A.’s rooms [the door doesn’t have a handle so it can’t be opened]. On the door hangs a light gray aluminum frame. There is nothing inside but the brown cardboard back and a passepartout.

The Loscil live set ends, which is the sign for me to end the inventory for today. I throw away the old passport photos and the PRESTO card, and put the golf tee, the lightbulb, the rubber bands, the safety pins, and the paper clip in the left drawer of my desk, knowing that there are more small things that I probably don’t know exactly what to do with. I bring the mug I drank the ginger infusion out of to the kitchen, throw the ginger sticks into the organic waste bin, and wash and dry the mug and the spoon and put them back into the drawers where they belong.
I go back into my room, charge my camcorder which I left on my desk instead of putting it back into the left drawer of the desk [where it usually is], and sit down at my desk. I turn off the speakers, close the laptop, open the laptop again. I close the browser, open the notes app, then the document with the 40 Nights in Toronto article for the Marŝarto awards open, so I will already look at what I need when I open the laptop tomorrow morning.

I take my daily planner as well as my all-purpose notebook, which I used to plan the schedule for my three perfect days, out of the desk’s right drawer. I open the daily planner and cross out everything I did until now, since I left for lunch. I turn the page and prepare tomorrow. I don’t copy the schedule 1:1 from my notebook into my planner. I am uncertain of a few things. I don’t know exactly why.
I close the notebook and put it back into the desk’s right drawer. I open the door to the balcony and go to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, floss my teeth, pee, wash my hands, wash my face, put lotion on my face, and take off my necklace.
I switch off the light in the hallway, go back to my room, close the door behind me first, then the balcony door, as well as the curtains. I sit down at the desk again, to have another look at the schedule I wrote down for tomorrow. Looking at it now, I am happy with it. I close my daily planner, open the desk’s right drawer, and take out the 40 NiT promo notebook that I will need tomorrow morning when I continue to edit the article for the Marŝarto Awards. I put the daily planner in the drawer and close it.

I unplug the camera charger and put it, along with the camcorder, back into the desk’s left drawer. I switch off the lamp on the sideboard, put the tatami mat from the wall to the floor, and roll out the futon on top of it. I take a bedsheet out of the sideboard, along with the duvet and the pillow. I cover the futon with the sheet and put the duvet and the pillow on top, as well as the gray blanket that I left temporarily on the desk while I set up my bed.
I take off my pants, my socks, my hoodie, and my sweatshirt, and store them in the sideboard. Except for the socks, which I leave on top of the slippers, so I can wear them tomorrow morning, before I wear fresh socks after taking a shower.
I take my phone charger, plug it into the outlet and into my phone, set an alarm to 7AM and tuck myself into bed. I read 1.5 pages of A Course in Miracles and fill one page of my evening journal notebook:

2025/12/30          145/237  live in your own world.
                                                  [presence]

when i woke up this morning, i had the intuitive idea to keep track of my day by recording speech-to text notes of everything i do.
it was a fun experiment, yet, it became exhausting toward the end of the day. i became aware of every single detail and small task i completed and now i understand why even when i have a day that is full of things i enjoy and love, i am exhausted at the end of it — bc the day is/was full — it’s that simple. [today, even fuller bc recording the notes accumulated and added more to my plate than i would have thought when i started it — i first had the idea of doing it for all three perfect days but i’ll stop now. after the first one.]

I switch off the dimmed ceiling lamp and the lamp on my nightstand, and close my eyes.

PS: disconnect 039/237 - Perfect Day 1/3 [Part I] and disconnect 040/237 - Perfect Day 1/3 [Part II] were inspired by the movie Peter Hujar’s Day.

PPS: After 40 Nights in Toronto was shortlisted for the Marŝarto Awards 2025, I was invited by walk · listen · create to share the story behind the project and insights into its creation. You can read it here: Spaziergang On An Empty Canvas