FEBRUARY 1982: My father tells me I should play the guitar right-handed even though I am left-handed so that I will have "more opportunities" later. I stupidly accept the logic of his argument and turn the guitar back to its normal position again.

MARCH 1982: My daughter is born. She is really tiny and I am happy.

APRIL 1982: We achieve our dream and buy an old farmhouse. I love its smell of old wood, the big garden, the old pear tree.

MAY 1982: I move into the first flat of my own. It costs 92.20 Marks and is in the basement at the back of the building. Two days later I invite Andreas round. He comes and says he’s tired. After violin class he'd also had tennis. I suggest he lies down and has a bit of a rest. Before he lies down, he undresses. I lie down next to him. Then nothing happens for a long time. My heart is beating against my vocal chords and I think he can hear it. Eventually I turn him on his stomach, hold his thighs tight and do what I saw a few days earlier in a magazine at a petrol station. I do it loudly, it is my own flat after all.

MAY 1982: I meet a group of Dutch musicians in Basel. Over coffee in a bar I see that unlike I had assumed so far I'm not as alone in my interests: There are others who see these things the same way.

JULY 1982: At the Whitsun tournament I take and score my first penalty. As a reward my trainer gives me three drinks coupons. I buy Fanta and cry overwhelmed and full of joy in my mother's arms.

SEPTEMBER 1982: Divorce of my parents.