i can't be bothered rifling around for them.
this year, it is simple. i am getting my mental health sorted out far better than i have this year. my head's stayed above water, yeah. i've had no major breakdowns, no complete moments of utter self destruction, but the lapping feelings of misery are getting more and more regular. i wake up and i cannot move. i cannot fucking move. i sit up to try and leave, and every bone in my body is begging me to lie down again, and hide, HIDE hide, don't LEAVE the room, don't leave your house, just close your eyes. if i push it, my brain starts pushing back angrily with a constant influx of internal monologue. it's a stream of hate and loathing, and it sounds like it's not my voice. then i doze. throughout the day, and night, i'll be awake for patches, but unable to read more than a few chapters of anything, and numb to the point of apathy. i don't even care i am missing work. i don't care i am losing money. i don't care i am paralyzed here. i'll have mild aural hallucinations - voices speaking to me just out of what i can hear - and if i try to do anything much, i feel as though i am being flayed.
i've had enough. i'm getting a full bipolar assessment done at the black dog institute.
the mania is fine. the mania is delicious. the mania is also really fucking destructive and needs to be managed because it's the Other Fucking Side of this.
i've also drawn the curtains on a four month relationship. this makes me achingly tired, because i stupidly, optimistically, thought that this time, it could be someone i may be able to start a life with. but not. and that's ok, i know, but i feel older and older, and more and more tired and unsure of what i want, apart from someone to walk with me and hold my hand when it's cold outside.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
more reading. go team
perhaps this is more indicative of my desire to procrastinate? i really fucking hate writing assignments.
i fond this book amazingly pleasing in a way i find hard to define. i felt fond and warm and sometimes, a bit horrified.
the narrative was a bit too loose in a way that seemed a bit too tricksy, but that's more a personal preference; i like tight narratives, and not cross sections sliced out and put under the microscope. i feel that i only got to know little fragments of Leah, but despite that, i loved her in a way i don't tend to usually love characters. it was a damp and heavy sort of book at times, but the writing, if not the narrative, was amazingly tightly polished.
i liked it more than i like a lot of the new young shiny things that i tend to think are too much glaze and not enough solidity. it was a book that makes me think i might consider buying other things by the writer. but it didn't change me. i think about this, verses something like 'gilead' which comes in and sucks you dry and ecstatic and the narrative and the writing fit so incredibly...
but yeah. i finished it, happily, and felt i was glad for reading it.
i fond this book amazingly pleasing in a way i find hard to define. i felt fond and warm and sometimes, a bit horrified.the narrative was a bit too loose in a way that seemed a bit too tricksy, but that's more a personal preference; i like tight narratives, and not cross sections sliced out and put under the microscope. i feel that i only got to know little fragments of Leah, but despite that, i loved her in a way i don't tend to usually love characters. it was a damp and heavy sort of book at times, but the writing, if not the narrative, was amazingly tightly polished.
i liked it more than i like a lot of the new young shiny things that i tend to think are too much glaze and not enough solidity. it was a book that makes me think i might consider buying other things by the writer. but it didn't change me. i think about this, verses something like 'gilead' which comes in and sucks you dry and ecstatic and the narrative and the writing fit so incredibly...
but yeah. i finished it, happily, and felt i was glad for reading it.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Book Time! 'one dimensional woman'
One Dimensional Woman (Zero Books)
i'll admit i blatantly stole this idea off another blogger whose name i have already forgotten. but i like the self shots with the book.
Now - my main critique of this was the fact that it was .... too short. yeah. this is not something i normally find - i adore brevity in books, especially about ideas - but i don't feel things were... fleshed out as much as they could have been and as much as i would have liked them to be. but, it was a great start.
a lot of major issues with contemporary feminism, and porn, and the analysis of porn, capitalism, feminism, and the notion of 'choice' were brilliantly discussed. but, the thing i often like in feminist texts is the personal - and the lack of this was a bit frustrating - when discussing forms that post-contemporary porn may take that remove it from the troubling place it is in, she's not addressing issues in the porn industry, or the individuals who work in it - she discusses the work as an abstract.
and a pet peeve of mine - the discussion of pornography, but only touching the edges of her darker sister, prostitution. i think when discussing sex and commerce, and the enactment of sex as a commercial transaction, failing to look at least passingly, or acknowledge that obvious space and the fact that porn provides an image of sex, while prostitution is the purchase of time, flesh and some sort of physical intimacy - a far more explicit transaction, is an oversight.
and Oh how it is raining. oh how good it is. i just want to dive into the sound and never come out. i dread it receding back, and clouds parting. i just want rain rain rain, all over my flesh tone, and wrinkling my toes in my shoes.
i'll admit i blatantly stole this idea off another blogger whose name i have already forgotten. but i like the self shots with the book.
Now - my main critique of this was the fact that it was .... too short. yeah. this is not something i normally find - i adore brevity in books, especially about ideas - but i don't feel things were... fleshed out as much as they could have been and as much as i would have liked them to be. but, it was a great start.
a lot of major issues with contemporary feminism, and porn, and the analysis of porn, capitalism, feminism, and the notion of 'choice' were brilliantly discussed. but, the thing i often like in feminist texts is the personal - and the lack of this was a bit frustrating - when discussing forms that post-contemporary porn may take that remove it from the troubling place it is in, she's not addressing issues in the porn industry, or the individuals who work in it - she discusses the work as an abstract.
and a pet peeve of mine - the discussion of pornography, but only touching the edges of her darker sister, prostitution. i think when discussing sex and commerce, and the enactment of sex as a commercial transaction, failing to look at least passingly, or acknowledge that obvious space and the fact that porn provides an image of sex, while prostitution is the purchase of time, flesh and some sort of physical intimacy - a far more explicit transaction, is an oversight.
and Oh how it is raining. oh how good it is. i just want to dive into the sound and never come out. i dread it receding back, and clouds parting. i just want rain rain rain, all over my flesh tone, and wrinkling my toes in my shoes.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
open
well, i've opened my blog up a little more now. hardly publicised, but it's not hidden. i've had a habit of doing so after a previous one was 'unearthed' - not that it was particularly salacious, unless you count a rather tedious diatribe about a nasty break up to be of interest - by someone who i'd rather, well, didn't contact me. if by some peculiar chance they choose to this time, well - /insert image of me, one eyebrow raised, confusion lighting up my face/.
reading wise, i've slowed down with the season. winter makes me withdraw, and i over-filled my time for six months. i fell behind at work, i fell behind in my general movements, and become tired. so now, i recharge. i'm listening to podcasts, and knitting a lace shawl from a pattern off ravelry. i'm trying to get better at chess; my Gentleman-Caller is excellent (he claims coyness...) and i'd like to at least be slightly more challenging than the feeble, easily defeated moppet i currently am.
workwise, i am attempting Ambition. there's a half-hearted attempt for me to find places to Go Towards. lots of dim lit scattered capital letters. they are quietly optimistic, but realistic at the same time.
things i've never seriously contemplated are seeming like serious and viable options - this is exciting and scary. i'm looking at circles and sparkles and i'm not sure how this makes me feel, other than extraordinarily happy, in a way that's new to me.
blogging is something that comforts me. i feel happy enough and safe enough to return to it, without more hungry ghosts leaping down my throat at phrases that do not belong to them. i've been doing this since 2000. it's how i purge. and i do it in silence, and not for an audience, and i occasionally forget, and remember again. it's like life drawing - the art of finding, and losing and finding the image over and over again until some sort of whole is made up. that's what blogging does, it creates a space for thinking and feeling and gives a comfortable context.
i'm thinking about study. real study - abstract, non-vocational, internal, intense study. everything is paused for the next six months though, until i know where i am going, and my god-forsaken library masters is over. two more subjects, and i have the paper, and i'll be walking out, awarded, MIS behind my name. furiously hungry to get rid of it. furiously eager to dig my teeth into something else. itching for this little patch of waiting and tapping my toes and saving every penny and eating out of cans to empty so i can uplift my belongings and start start start... perhaps.
reading wise, i've slowed down with the season. winter makes me withdraw, and i over-filled my time for six months. i fell behind at work, i fell behind in my general movements, and become tired. so now, i recharge. i'm listening to podcasts, and knitting a lace shawl from a pattern off ravelry. i'm trying to get better at chess; my Gentleman-Caller is excellent (he claims coyness...) and i'd like to at least be slightly more challenging than the feeble, easily defeated moppet i currently am.
workwise, i am attempting Ambition. there's a half-hearted attempt for me to find places to Go Towards. lots of dim lit scattered capital letters. they are quietly optimistic, but realistic at the same time.
things i've never seriously contemplated are seeming like serious and viable options - this is exciting and scary. i'm looking at circles and sparkles and i'm not sure how this makes me feel, other than extraordinarily happy, in a way that's new to me.
blogging is something that comforts me. i feel happy enough and safe enough to return to it, without more hungry ghosts leaping down my throat at phrases that do not belong to them. i've been doing this since 2000. it's how i purge. and i do it in silence, and not for an audience, and i occasionally forget, and remember again. it's like life drawing - the art of finding, and losing and finding the image over and over again until some sort of whole is made up. that's what blogging does, it creates a space for thinking and feeling and gives a comfortable context.
i'm thinking about study. real study - abstract, non-vocational, internal, intense study. everything is paused for the next six months though, until i know where i am going, and my god-forsaken library masters is over. two more subjects, and i have the paper, and i'll be walking out, awarded, MIS behind my name. furiously hungry to get rid of it. furiously eager to dig my teeth into something else. itching for this little patch of waiting and tapping my toes and saving every penny and eating out of cans to empty so i can uplift my belongings and start start start... perhaps.
Bands i have seen
Work In Progress.
this is where i try and remember things, like all the BIG bands i have seen, and then find the dates when i see them. good work elizabeth! funzies! i am missing a lot - and they are ALL out of order, le sigh.
Morrissey - Livid Festival Brisbane 2003
Mogwai - Livid Festival Brisbane 2003
Dirty Three - Livid Festival Brisbane 2003
The Cure - BEC Brisbane 2007
Arcade Fire - Big Day Out Gold Coast 2008
Bjork - Big Day Out Gold Coast 2008
Sigur Ros - Tivoli Brisbane 2006
Sigur Ros - Tivoli Brisbane 2006
Mountain Goats - The Zoo Brisbane 2008
Mono - The Zoo Brisbane 2006/7 (?)
Animal Collective - The Zoo Brisbane 2006
Gogol Bordello - Sydney 2010
Iota - Troubadour Brisbane 2005
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Troubadour Brisbane 2007
Low - Troubadour Brisbane 2006/7
M. Ward - The Zoo Brisbane 2006/7
Smog/Callahan - Troubadour Brisbane 2007
Dresden Dolls - The Zoo Brisbane 2006
Amanda Fucking Palmer - The Zoo Brisbane 2007
Amanda Fucking Palmer - Sydney Opera House Sydney 2009
Patrick Wolf - Rosies Brisbane 2007
Patrick Wolf - The Zoo Brisbane 2009
The Mountain Goats - The Metro Sydney 2010
Regurgitator - The Met Brisbane 2007
Ani Difranco - Playhouse Brisbane 2005
Ani Difranco - Canberra Theatre Canberra 2008
Mertzbow & Keji Heno - Powerhouse (this is not music festival) Brisbane 2005
Tenniscoats - The Zoo
Tujiko Noriko - Powerhouse
Sufjan Stevens - Tivoli Brisbane 2007
P J Harvey - Convention Centre Brisbane 2005
Boris, Melt-banana, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, et al - Sydney Opera House 2010
xiu xiu - Powerhouse 2010
this is where i try and remember things, like all the BIG bands i have seen, and then find the dates when i see them. good work elizabeth! funzies! i am missing a lot - and they are ALL out of order, le sigh.
Morrissey - Livid Festival Brisbane 2003
Mogwai - Livid Festival Brisbane 2003
Dirty Three - Livid Festival Brisbane 2003
The Cure - BEC Brisbane 2007
Arcade Fire - Big Day Out Gold Coast 2008
Bjork - Big Day Out Gold Coast 2008
Sigur Ros - Tivoli Brisbane 2006
Sigur Ros - Tivoli Brisbane 2006
Mountain Goats - The Zoo Brisbane 2008
Mono - The Zoo Brisbane 2006/7 (?)
Animal Collective - The Zoo Brisbane 2006
Gogol Bordello - Sydney 2010
Iota - Troubadour Brisbane 2005
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Troubadour Brisbane 2007
Low - Troubadour Brisbane 2006/7
M. Ward - The Zoo Brisbane 2006/7
Smog/Callahan - Troubadour Brisbane 2007
Dresden Dolls - The Zoo Brisbane 2006
Amanda Fucking Palmer - The Zoo Brisbane 2007
Amanda Fucking Palmer - Sydney Opera House Sydney 2009
Patrick Wolf - Rosies Brisbane 2007
Patrick Wolf - The Zoo Brisbane 2009
The Mountain Goats - The Metro Sydney 2010
Regurgitator - The Met Brisbane 2007
Ani Difranco - Playhouse Brisbane 2005
Ani Difranco - Canberra Theatre Canberra 2008
Mertzbow & Keji Heno - Powerhouse (this is not music festival) Brisbane 2005
Tenniscoats - The Zoo
Tujiko Noriko - Powerhouse
Sufjan Stevens - Tivoli Brisbane 2007
P J Harvey - Convention Centre Brisbane 2005
Boris, Melt-banana, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, et al - Sydney Opera House 2010
xiu xiu - Powerhouse 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
purpose
this is what kills me.
one of my earliest memories was sitting at the kitchen table doing a drawing, crayons and pencils, and a picture of rabbits playing tennis.
and halfway through, this chill went through me. why was was i doing this? what was the purpose, apart from the fun i was getting, of doing this drawing? it would rot away with time - the acidic paper would fade (of course, not knowing much about acid in paper when i was 7, my understanding of exactly how and why it would rot was limited).. and even if someone did love it, or it did sell, or whatever, well... then what's the point?
this really only proves i was a fucked up kid.
but this still plagues me hideously. it's friday night, and i should be relaxing. instead, i am wracked with guilt, and want to do something 'Meaningful' with my night. and then, it turns into this nasty sort of pattern - what is meaningful? what is pleasure? what do i want to do? what book should i choose? what would be the purpose though, of reading it if i didn't write about it, or reflect on it, or discuss it, or at least feel like i had been enriched by it. and even, were i to do that, what meaning does that give me?
essentially, i reduce it all back, and i come to a very nihilistic sort of place, where nothing ends up having any sort of meaning.
and this is all because it's a friday night and i am trying to pick between reading Gunter Grass and a novel about a guy who really liked The Smiths as a teenager. OH or writing something about my teen novels. or working. or. or, or... or....... what the fuck?
this is why i have the tattoo on my arm. to remind me of the circles and the patterns and to remember that this nihilism is something that's haunted me for as long as i can recall, and that no matter where i go, nothing is just behind and in front of me, because nothing is all i can honestly believe in.
one of my earliest memories was sitting at the kitchen table doing a drawing, crayons and pencils, and a picture of rabbits playing tennis.
and halfway through, this chill went through me. why was was i doing this? what was the purpose, apart from the fun i was getting, of doing this drawing? it would rot away with time - the acidic paper would fade (of course, not knowing much about acid in paper when i was 7, my understanding of exactly how and why it would rot was limited).. and even if someone did love it, or it did sell, or whatever, well... then what's the point?
this really only proves i was a fucked up kid.
but this still plagues me hideously. it's friday night, and i should be relaxing. instead, i am wracked with guilt, and want to do something 'Meaningful' with my night. and then, it turns into this nasty sort of pattern - what is meaningful? what is pleasure? what do i want to do? what book should i choose? what would be the purpose though, of reading it if i didn't write about it, or reflect on it, or discuss it, or at least feel like i had been enriched by it. and even, were i to do that, what meaning does that give me?
essentially, i reduce it all back, and i come to a very nihilistic sort of place, where nothing ends up having any sort of meaning.
and this is all because it's a friday night and i am trying to pick between reading Gunter Grass and a novel about a guy who really liked The Smiths as a teenager. OH or writing something about my teen novels. or working. or. or, or... or....... what the fuck?
this is why i have the tattoo on my arm. to remind me of the circles and the patterns and to remember that this nihilism is something that's haunted me for as long as i can recall, and that no matter where i go, nothing is just behind and in front of me, because nothing is all i can honestly believe in.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
i should start writing again
or maybe it's time for a new blog. i dunno.
anyhow, regardless, i am pondering dinner. right now, all i know for sure that i have at home is tomatoes, and some couscous. should i get additional vegetables? capsicum would be pleasing with this. but maybe beans? i like beans. and chili. from memory, i have some chilli. oh, and spring onions! excellent.
there's a dinner.
wow. amazing. this is a spectacular return to blogging, elizabeth. you get a sticker of excellence. well done indeed. well. done.
anyhow, regardless, i am pondering dinner. right now, all i know for sure that i have at home is tomatoes, and some couscous. should i get additional vegetables? capsicum would be pleasing with this. but maybe beans? i like beans. and chili. from memory, i have some chilli. oh, and spring onions! excellent.
there's a dinner.
wow. amazing. this is a spectacular return to blogging, elizabeth. you get a sticker of excellence. well done indeed. well. done.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
space
cut open a vein and let me see what is inside tonight.
and i don't mean this as more than a passing reference, a graze, maybe, to self mutilation. i am just talking about rawness, and falling, and trust, and opening your heart again with the simple ugly understanding that you will JUST lose them in time and it , maybe, all that you deserve.
i don't know. when i drink too much i end up just hating myself. i forget that. and when i wonder, or worry, if i am misplacing and that oh no, why the fuck would they care? then i am horrified and scared. and i look impassive in the face of that because i guess that's how i survive this. i don't know.
i feel like my own ignorance is a catch phrase. and what are you DOING with your life and your brain and your heart and your purpose? i drink it away and i move day to day hand to mouth, gnaw to gnaw, whim to whim with no direction. and i hate it, and i turn it inside and i hate myself for it.
i forgot to get more pills and i feel an aching sickness in my stomach of effexor withdrawals. oh GOD boy, why do you bother with me when you are beautiful and smart and have the whole world in your hands. you have had women so much more gaspingly wonderful than i. i am just some scruffy idiotic australian girl with nothing to say of worth. oh GOD why do you bother? i would not bother with me.
i need to drag myself back and sleep now. i sense the lights draining out of my heart and i sense a darkness fading in, and i need to pull back and fix this before i snap.
and i don't mean this as more than a passing reference, a graze, maybe, to self mutilation. i am just talking about rawness, and falling, and trust, and opening your heart again with the simple ugly understanding that you will JUST lose them in time and it , maybe, all that you deserve.
i don't know. when i drink too much i end up just hating myself. i forget that. and when i wonder, or worry, if i am misplacing and that oh no, why the fuck would they care? then i am horrified and scared. and i look impassive in the face of that because i guess that's how i survive this. i don't know.
i feel like my own ignorance is a catch phrase. and what are you DOING with your life and your brain and your heart and your purpose? i drink it away and i move day to day hand to mouth, gnaw to gnaw, whim to whim with no direction. and i hate it, and i turn it inside and i hate myself for it.
i forgot to get more pills and i feel an aching sickness in my stomach of effexor withdrawals. oh GOD boy, why do you bother with me when you are beautiful and smart and have the whole world in your hands. you have had women so much more gaspingly wonderful than i. i am just some scruffy idiotic australian girl with nothing to say of worth. oh GOD why do you bother? i would not bother with me.
i need to drag myself back and sleep now. i sense the lights draining out of my heart and i sense a darkness fading in, and i need to pull back and fix this before i snap.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
upper spine
is it trite to say how much i love yoga? i love it. it's a form of meditation i don't find difficult - you slow the mind right down through holding the body, and knowing the body, and feeling the body.
what i love too is feeling the body get stronger week by week, and feeling an intimacy grow. how was i not that intimate with my body? how did i get so distant from the flesh i inhabit? no, not inhabit. i don't inhabit my body, i am my body. it is what it is that is me.
ooooh oooh morrissey does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body ... i dunno...
in which once again, the smiths prove to be the source of all wisdom about all things. it is strange when certain poses push too far, or not far enough, or the more you learn about a pose, the way the feeling of going to it, and then holding it, and then exiting it shifts. even the really simple standing poses - the more i do them, the more aware i become of every inch of my body - down to my fingers being stretched properly - to muscle areas in my thighs and how they should be facing to best experience the asana.
i can feel it helping my posture. i have one vertebrae in my neck that juts out at an odd angle due to years and years of slouching and terrible posture. through pulling it back, and trying to tighten the muscles around them, and through my teacher's explaining how we are supposed to work towards a shoulder stand, i can feel what muscles are fucked up.
and thus ends my yoga diatribe.
this is the advantage of keeping this as an exercise in exposure/narcissism/emotional-mental-verbal-defecation - i can blatter about without caring what impact this does, or doesn't make.
i suspect i need to start getting into work at a decent time. this is, i admit, more than fair enough. i'm attempting to read more. i am already becoming lax and indifferent towards my uni studies. wow. this time, it took me what? a week? maybe i should read Is History Fiction? either that, or The Master of Go by Kawabata. last time i was in brisbane, i went on a terrible (read - exceptional) book spree, and spent a few hundred (ok, probably close to 400) on books. am attempting to make the rule of Read Five For Each One i Buy. i find the Read Five for Each Binge I Have seems to work better.
tomorrow, sydney-town to see STEPHEN FRY oh JOY!LIF_IC_ATION!!!!
what i love too is feeling the body get stronger week by week, and feeling an intimacy grow. how was i not that intimate with my body? how did i get so distant from the flesh i inhabit? no, not inhabit. i don't inhabit my body, i am my body. it is what it is that is me.
ooooh oooh morrissey does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body ... i dunno...
in which once again, the smiths prove to be the source of all wisdom about all things. it is strange when certain poses push too far, or not far enough, or the more you learn about a pose, the way the feeling of going to it, and then holding it, and then exiting it shifts. even the really simple standing poses - the more i do them, the more aware i become of every inch of my body - down to my fingers being stretched properly - to muscle areas in my thighs and how they should be facing to best experience the asana.
i can feel it helping my posture. i have one vertebrae in my neck that juts out at an odd angle due to years and years of slouching and terrible posture. through pulling it back, and trying to tighten the muscles around them, and through my teacher's explaining how we are supposed to work towards a shoulder stand, i can feel what muscles are fucked up.
and thus ends my yoga diatribe.
this is the advantage of keeping this as an exercise in exposure/narcissism/emotional-mental-verbal-defecation - i can blatter about without caring what impact this does, or doesn't make.
i suspect i need to start getting into work at a decent time. this is, i admit, more than fair enough. i'm attempting to read more. i am already becoming lax and indifferent towards my uni studies. wow. this time, it took me what? a week? maybe i should read Is History Fiction? either that, or The Master of Go by Kawabata. last time i was in brisbane, i went on a terrible (read - exceptional) book spree, and spent a few hundred (ok, probably close to 400) on books. am attempting to make the rule of Read Five For Each One i Buy. i find the Read Five for Each Binge I Have seems to work better.
tomorrow, sydney-town to see STEPHEN FRY oh JOY!LIF_IC_ATION!!!!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
neglected
conference in melbourne, tedious rashed affliction, uni work, etc etc. this makes me tired, and takes away the things i feel like i could put in here.
i'd like to say that words were the best of me, but i don't know what best means. i tend to think my bookshelf was/is; it's built and shaped and molded with just the right number of cracking fissures to make it charming, and enough solidity to keep it standing. if i were to introduce myself somehow, i would do it with my books - sweeping arm around them, polishing them, leaving them glistening. it's cleaner than i am, it's more of who i would like to be. there is an element of concealment i've never be able to manage. a 'mystery', a sort of complexity, rather than a stripped heart on sleeve bluntness that i wield like a clumsy sword.
i am fantasising about making my apartment beautiful. i want to grow potatoes. i know, they are cheap, but i would love to do it, dig them up and get the dirt under my nails. there are little paper lights in the loungeroom, and i want to hang them from my walls. i want them draped and sagging around the apartment.
there is a constant push pull inside of me. the gentleness i wish i could have, the slightness, the wider eyed beauty, the reaching out, and a butterfly sitting on my fingers and a pause, and a mysterious smile, and i remain like that, an enigma, cats resting on my lap, a puzzle to be solved, and yet, and yet, i end up being this over inflated flesh to be taken at will that races off and feeds it to anyone. and i don't know if i want to be either, or if i can be either. i feel like the 'dance drink screw' refrain of common people in my head, dance drink screw, dance drink screw, round and around like horses on a carousel rising and falling. and then i try and pull back to control it, because i just don't want to sleep alone anymore, and i want honeysuckle and free roaming bunnies, and drawings of botanical illustrations made into wall paper, and ahh shit i don't even believe in anymore. and i'm afraid of the dark without you next to me, i thought, and then i opened my eyes, and i don't want to be a pretty girl, a maiden fair, because i an not a pretty girl, and i'll never be like that, no matter how many muscles i pull trying to fit into the sweet little floral dress.
i don't know. enacting whatever parody of self i want to take out to play confuses me. it's a game, a puzzle, and i have no sense of how to fit together some image that will move me anywhere, or if i should be 'genuine' or if it's even possible to be genuine.
if i could roll myself back to a point before i became, well, filthy, would i? it's not that long ago really that i'd never taken drugs, or had sex outside of a loving relationship. it's a matter of a few years that i pushed the skin i thought i was in out, and reformed myself into a parody of the narrow line i used to be. and you can't quite go back. i can't sew the marriages back together, or pull memories from night after night after night in alleys and goonbags and up trees and down streets and in the rain, and i would not trade this filth for the world because i love it. it feeds me more than the cottage does, because it takes me away.
in other news, i found exciting cider, that tastes like strawberry, and i have a blog about being a librarian that even i can't bring myself to read.
i'd like to say that words were the best of me, but i don't know what best means. i tend to think my bookshelf was/is; it's built and shaped and molded with just the right number of cracking fissures to make it charming, and enough solidity to keep it standing. if i were to introduce myself somehow, i would do it with my books - sweeping arm around them, polishing them, leaving them glistening. it's cleaner than i am, it's more of who i would like to be. there is an element of concealment i've never be able to manage. a 'mystery', a sort of complexity, rather than a stripped heart on sleeve bluntness that i wield like a clumsy sword.
i am fantasising about making my apartment beautiful. i want to grow potatoes. i know, they are cheap, but i would love to do it, dig them up and get the dirt under my nails. there are little paper lights in the loungeroom, and i want to hang them from my walls. i want them draped and sagging around the apartment.
there is a constant push pull inside of me. the gentleness i wish i could have, the slightness, the wider eyed beauty, the reaching out, and a butterfly sitting on my fingers and a pause, and a mysterious smile, and i remain like that, an enigma, cats resting on my lap, a puzzle to be solved, and yet, and yet, i end up being this over inflated flesh to be taken at will that races off and feeds it to anyone. and i don't know if i want to be either, or if i can be either. i feel like the 'dance drink screw' refrain of common people in my head, dance drink screw, dance drink screw, round and around like horses on a carousel rising and falling. and then i try and pull back to control it, because i just don't want to sleep alone anymore, and i want honeysuckle and free roaming bunnies, and drawings of botanical illustrations made into wall paper, and ahh shit i don't even believe in anymore. and i'm afraid of the dark without you next to me, i thought, and then i opened my eyes, and i don't want to be a pretty girl, a maiden fair, because i an not a pretty girl, and i'll never be like that, no matter how many muscles i pull trying to fit into the sweet little floral dress.
i don't know. enacting whatever parody of self i want to take out to play confuses me. it's a game, a puzzle, and i have no sense of how to fit together some image that will move me anywhere, or if i should be 'genuine' or if it's even possible to be genuine.
if i could roll myself back to a point before i became, well, filthy, would i? it's not that long ago really that i'd never taken drugs, or had sex outside of a loving relationship. it's a matter of a few years that i pushed the skin i thought i was in out, and reformed myself into a parody of the narrow line i used to be. and you can't quite go back. i can't sew the marriages back together, or pull memories from night after night after night in alleys and goonbags and up trees and down streets and in the rain, and i would not trade this filth for the world because i love it. it feeds me more than the cottage does, because it takes me away.
in other news, i found exciting cider, that tastes like strawberry, and i have a blog about being a librarian that even i can't bring myself to read.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
oh how we are hungry
we, or me, i don't know.
i like pushing things, this is what i do. this is how i do it. i don't know why i do, though, and it doesn't really matter.
i wonder what bridges i burn though, and even, if it matters anymore. i feel more wide and open, but older and more tired at the same time. but this is ok. and i am hungry.
i don't know what's happened to my words. i've been exhausted, and run dry. emptied out. i keep trying to fill and fill and fill, but is it empty still? i check the levels and oh, oh yes. it is. again? or not again. it is hard to see if i am walking in circles.
you always fall in love again. but i get so tired of it, you know. it leads me on, my carrot slightly out of reach. i am a sucker, emotionally, for that flood, that movement of one soul into the next, blah blah, all words that have little to no meaning, but oh how i like it, you drug you. it's my way of being creative, because i feel like i cannot make anything other than other bodies work. ha, and i fail even, over and over, at the idea of finding that connection. i fail well. i'm hungry.
i like pushing things, this is what i do. this is how i do it. i don't know why i do, though, and it doesn't really matter.
i wonder what bridges i burn though, and even, if it matters anymore. i feel more wide and open, but older and more tired at the same time. but this is ok. and i am hungry.
i don't know what's happened to my words. i've been exhausted, and run dry. emptied out. i keep trying to fill and fill and fill, but is it empty still? i check the levels and oh, oh yes. it is. again? or not again. it is hard to see if i am walking in circles.
you always fall in love again. but i get so tired of it, you know. it leads me on, my carrot slightly out of reach. i am a sucker, emotionally, for that flood, that movement of one soul into the next, blah blah, all words that have little to no meaning, but oh how i like it, you drug you. it's my way of being creative, because i feel like i cannot make anything other than other bodies work. ha, and i fail even, over and over, at the idea of finding that connection. i fail well. i'm hungry.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
pottering
i am reading the guardian, as i always do, in love with most of the articles. i adore that newspaper. whenever i feel low about the world, or the internet especially, i turn to the guardian to have some faith restored.
i am, Uncommonly, bored right now. unusually bored. infuriatingly bored. sinking skin crawlingly bored. this is a symptom. i know this. i know you well.
semester crawls on. one essay left, on the Dewey Decimal System. what sort of librarian cliche is that? chew of my LEG for god's sake. i just want to TEAR things into shreds, it is like there are bugs crawling under my skin right now, that growling prowling scratching feeling of a cat left inside all day.
saw an amazing show monday night. laurie anderson. lou reed. meltbanana. boris. bardo pond. i could go on. the sound growled through my body and i felt alive and calm and taken down and under until i was re-written. it made me deplorably pleased.
only now, i want more of that sort of pleasure. and it is so dry here, so dry and sandpaper-y and rough. there's something to be said for 'making the best' but i just cannot keep making things up anymore. i am not a magician, and i am not out of this world. i want to be drunk on the earth, and clamber up church towers and i want to fall off things until i bleed it out, this desire, red into earth. not violently, just engulfing until i cannot breathe.
i am, Uncommonly, bored right now. unusually bored. infuriatingly bored. sinking skin crawlingly bored. this is a symptom. i know this. i know you well.
semester crawls on. one essay left, on the Dewey Decimal System. what sort of librarian cliche is that? chew of my LEG for god's sake. i just want to TEAR things into shreds, it is like there are bugs crawling under my skin right now, that growling prowling scratching feeling of a cat left inside all day.
saw an amazing show monday night. laurie anderson. lou reed. meltbanana. boris. bardo pond. i could go on. the sound growled through my body and i felt alive and calm and taken down and under until i was re-written. it made me deplorably pleased.
only now, i want more of that sort of pleasure. and it is so dry here, so dry and sandpaper-y and rough. there's something to be said for 'making the best' but i just cannot keep making things up anymore. i am not a magician, and i am not out of this world. i want to be drunk on the earth, and clamber up church towers and i want to fall off things until i bleed it out, this desire, red into earth. not violently, just engulfing until i cannot breathe.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
uni vers ity end god please
it makes me wracked. wrecked. i end up useless and moved without warning from high to low. stress is unbearable for me - it shifts my moods faster and faster and they run rings around me. i end up not knowing what i am doing, or where i am going, or why, and i forget things, like getting to work on time, or how to stay awake, or how to sleep, or why i can't spend all my money, or what i was studying today, or even why i was bothering, why? what am i DOING? it's not like i am career focused to start with - but combined with study and stress and frustration and chewing off my legs in irritation and slowness and static one day will this fucking END feeling i forget why i bother.
i am bored. i am bored out of my mind. i need something to ram against, and push against. i need something that's so hard and complex i cannot solve it. this is why i date so many arse holes. they are puzzles, ugly mutated ones, that i want to put together. i want to pull myself apart and spread out my organs, one by one, and tell my own fortune from the entrails.
i want this semester to be over.
i also just finished reading Benjamin Law's book :
which made me feel really really happy and warm. there's one essay that ends just an inch too soon, but apart from that, i just adored it. he is funny, but it's also really touching and simple, and... kind? you have the most intimate feeling for the family, the loved ones, and yet you don't feel as though it's an invasive look at someone's family - it's respectful, and open, and funny, and there's fart jokes. i love all that stuff.
still plodding in Moby Dick. it's delicious and heavy and i want to swim in the fat of the words.
i am bored. i am bored out of my mind. i need something to ram against, and push against. i need something that's so hard and complex i cannot solve it. this is why i date so many arse holes. they are puzzles, ugly mutated ones, that i want to put together. i want to pull myself apart and spread out my organs, one by one, and tell my own fortune from the entrails.
i want this semester to be over.
i also just finished reading Benjamin Law's book :
which made me feel really really happy and warm. there's one essay that ends just an inch too soon, but apart from that, i just adored it. he is funny, but it's also really touching and simple, and... kind? you have the most intimate feeling for the family, the loved ones, and yet you don't feel as though it's an invasive look at someone's family - it's respectful, and open, and funny, and there's fart jokes. i love all that stuff.still plodding in Moby Dick. it's delicious and heavy and i want to swim in the fat of the words.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
extra-ordinary frustration
small factors added up. no internet at home. (thus lack of posts, my iPhone toting reader/s).
i am waiting, stasis, in this repulsive town, tapping toes, watching sand, slip slip, waiting for gravity to take me. reading trash, watching money dust around me, eating broccoli, drinking beer, soft red fringes, sleeping (always sleeping) endless frustrated twitching, come ON, now, come ON....
but i'll get there. i know that. i am happy, just frustrated. moving, slowly. escape route delayed a few months, still waiting. letting some sense of that grinning stomping joyful creature i am seep back into me, and i stand tall, and i take in air, and i gather back everything that hungry hollow ghosts stole out from under me, day after day, more and more gathers below me. and i will get free of this, oh yes. i will.
i am waiting, stasis, in this repulsive town, tapping toes, watching sand, slip slip, waiting for gravity to take me. reading trash, watching money dust around me, eating broccoli, drinking beer, soft red fringes, sleeping (always sleeping) endless frustrated twitching, come ON, now, come ON....
but i'll get there. i know that. i am happy, just frustrated. moving, slowly. escape route delayed a few months, still waiting. letting some sense of that grinning stomping joyful creature i am seep back into me, and i stand tall, and i take in air, and i gather back everything that hungry hollow ghosts stole out from under me, day after day, more and more gathers below me. and i will get free of this, oh yes. i will.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
storytime
i've been working with the most amazing papers the last few days - of the author Jack Lindsay. i've been looking at the correspondence in his later years - he was in his seventies - between him and his contemporaries. one particular narrative captured me - a friend, colin, who wrote of his love affairs, and son and the mother of his son, of his mental health and struggles with drinking.... interspersed with, to be honest, pretty sub-par poetry. i sort of fell in love with him, this man in his 40's, fighting through life, falling in love and apart, and writing so passionately and desperately to his friend, typewritten letters from the late '70's.
i don't know if colin was prominent enough to end up being recorded - i mean, i could find out what happened to him without too much effort - when he died, etc. but i want to know what happened with his son aaron, and his wife, who also wrote to Jack using this big, floral script with little circles over the i's, and pastel coloured pencils.
i don't know if colin was prominent enough to end up being recorded - i mean, i could find out what happened to him without too much effort - when he died, etc. but i want to know what happened with his son aaron, and his wife, who also wrote to Jack using this big, floral script with little circles over the i's, and pastel coloured pencils.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
cold
now, it's like scalpels. it's like being choked and dragged down the street, or like your body is being pushed from every single angle by opposing forces, until you crumble under the weight. i forget how fast it gets cold here. it's only my third winter.
it brings with it a quiet darkness in my mind as well, which wraps around my neck as well, pulling tighter. and it'll grab me forcefully and kick me to the ground and yell at me about being meaningless again. and it's a lie. i know this. it's only a week, or a few days even. i know what's happening, and this too will pass away, and soon i'll slip back into my more normal state. but a change of seasons will bring it in, dark curtains over my head, and i will drown a little day by day until i swim again.
i want to buy books. somehow i feel like this will cheer me up. or i'll have a bath. i ate duck, and it was good, and drank red wine. i want to be coiled up around another warm body like a spring, reminding me i am alive, but i don't trust myself. i don't trust what i want, or what i'd veil in cautious optimism as a possibility. sshhhhh. shh. don't put your eggs in that basket. remember, it always ends like this.
it brings with it a quiet darkness in my mind as well, which wraps around my neck as well, pulling tighter. and it'll grab me forcefully and kick me to the ground and yell at me about being meaningless again. and it's a lie. i know this. it's only a week, or a few days even. i know what's happening, and this too will pass away, and soon i'll slip back into my more normal state. but a change of seasons will bring it in, dark curtains over my head, and i will drown a little day by day until i swim again.
i want to buy books. somehow i feel like this will cheer me up. or i'll have a bath. i ate duck, and it was good, and drank red wine. i want to be coiled up around another warm body like a spring, reminding me i am alive, but i don't trust myself. i don't trust what i want, or what i'd veil in cautious optimism as a possibility. sshhhhh. shh. don't put your eggs in that basket. remember, it always ends like this.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
dry
the words feel dry in my mouth tonight. it's not flowing in any way. i don't feel like i have anything to say, or any way to say it, or any way to tell people to give me a job, or give me a chance, or give me a moment.
oh, little chicken, you're barking up the wrong tree again. just go back to sleep, because you, and your little impossible dreams are not going to get you anywhere. you might dream it real, but you are small, and invisible, and you will sleep alone again tonight, like last night, and tomorrow.
not that i'm bound to this, or that it's a real outline of who or what i am. i don't believe i am worthless or unlovable or unloved. just right now, i feel isolated and stuck, and like i have forgotten how to get where i am going. or even why i am going there. i get caught up in the magic of my own deceptions, this thrilling tail chasing glee, circles in the mud, giggles and fleeing my own time and heart, and then i stop, and i am here, and i am left, silent and alone again.
i'm not trying to fill a space. i just wonder if i'm left looking for things in ridiculous places, or if my idealism is constantly misplaced. i feel like i've been awake for years when it's been a day, and i feel like i'll never feel that shuddering shrugging joy of slipping away into another human being again mutually. you are being stupid, little chicken, you know this. close your eyes, open up, stretch out and wait. and wait.
but i am tired.
oh, little chicken, you're barking up the wrong tree again. just go back to sleep, because you, and your little impossible dreams are not going to get you anywhere. you might dream it real, but you are small, and invisible, and you will sleep alone again tonight, like last night, and tomorrow.
not that i'm bound to this, or that it's a real outline of who or what i am. i don't believe i am worthless or unlovable or unloved. just right now, i feel isolated and stuck, and like i have forgotten how to get where i am going. or even why i am going there. i get caught up in the magic of my own deceptions, this thrilling tail chasing glee, circles in the mud, giggles and fleeing my own time and heart, and then i stop, and i am here, and i am left, silent and alone again.
i'm not trying to fill a space. i just wonder if i'm left looking for things in ridiculous places, or if my idealism is constantly misplaced. i feel like i've been awake for years when it's been a day, and i feel like i'll never feel that shuddering shrugging joy of slipping away into another human being again mutually. you are being stupid, little chicken, you know this. close your eyes, open up, stretch out and wait. and wait.
but i am tired.
Monday, May 3, 2010
study
it always leaves me feeling dragged and buggered without enough preparation. i hate it. i hate it. i struggle painfully with the constant heavy anxiety. and now, i'm over the halfway mark of this semester - three pieces of assessment down, two to go. i just have to scrape through, and keep going. one word, one step, one movement after another...one barely connected thought after another.... stringing it together, one day at a time.
i am stubborn though, and determined to get there. i drank tea, and wrote dewey numbers, and fuck, i don't even know if i did any of them right, but let's hope i did well enough to scrape through.
i'm also very ... unreliable with uni. i don't care a lot about it. i care about finishing. i care about getting the qualification. but i have no work ethic. i have no passion for what i am doing. i find it boring, and frustrating, and time wasting, and i just want it over. so, day. after. day. one day at a time. i can get this thing done.
escape plan ... this too will pass away.
i am stubborn though, and determined to get there. i drank tea, and wrote dewey numbers, and fuck, i don't even know if i did any of them right, but let's hope i did well enough to scrape through.
i'm also very ... unreliable with uni. i don't care a lot about it. i care about finishing. i care about getting the qualification. but i have no work ethic. i have no passion for what i am doing. i find it boring, and frustrating, and time wasting, and i just want it over. so, day. after. day. one day at a time. i can get this thing done.
escape plan ... this too will pass away.
Friday, April 30, 2010
winter
canberra winters always end up shuddering over the top of me before i realise they are there. i am sitting waiting, waiting for the cold to end up taking me under. at the moment, there are leaves up to my knees on the side of the road. i love that too; i walk through them, i wade and kick, and run, and have them crunch underfoot. light filtering more and more through the trees as the leaves fall away, less and less, and yet the sun does less and less....
i find that one of the stranger things. the sun in brisbane is heavy and heady even in the middle of winter. you will sweat, heavy and hot, wade through the humidity not leaves, the feeling of the heat on your arms, the smell of the air when i walk down brunswick street, treading water? treading over the cement on the sidewalk... near the cliff face, near the trees, oh you can stand on it and see the fucking world unfold in that river....
it's been since, november? october? since my last visit... my old haunts have shifted - my favourite cafe, a place i practically lived in for a few years, has shut its doors. my old friends have new lives in new places. things change. it's the way it goes, over and over again. that comforts me, actually, i like that things are not static, and i go back, and it's all different. the place, my last year in brisbane which was glorious and wonderful and mad and fun, and silly, well, that world's as dead as the person i was then is. it's passed away, hand over hand, into a new placement of people. you can never go home again. it never is home again.
and i am not settled here; the streets are sanitized, but i can feel a humanity, a warmth in them. i am still looking for an out, and i have found one - a job that fits all the necessary things i need to apply to an institution that's not mine - and maybe, well, i'll do it. things are slowing, and it's time for a change. my feet itch, i am hungry, my palms are open, open open, and i want to drink the world up. of course there is potential here, but the quiet, the streets, the wideness of the streets have done me in. the lack of frottage on streets with strangers just trying to struggle to work, the smell of the air... i want a city to open me up and bleed me dry for a bit. and not just little interludes. i want it to take me again, something new, somewhere new, anything, just shifting off again...
i find that one of the stranger things. the sun in brisbane is heavy and heady even in the middle of winter. you will sweat, heavy and hot, wade through the humidity not leaves, the feeling of the heat on your arms, the smell of the air when i walk down brunswick street, treading water? treading over the cement on the sidewalk... near the cliff face, near the trees, oh you can stand on it and see the fucking world unfold in that river....
it's been since, november? october? since my last visit... my old haunts have shifted - my favourite cafe, a place i practically lived in for a few years, has shut its doors. my old friends have new lives in new places. things change. it's the way it goes, over and over again. that comforts me, actually, i like that things are not static, and i go back, and it's all different. the place, my last year in brisbane which was glorious and wonderful and mad and fun, and silly, well, that world's as dead as the person i was then is. it's passed away, hand over hand, into a new placement of people. you can never go home again. it never is home again.
and i am not settled here; the streets are sanitized, but i can feel a humanity, a warmth in them. i am still looking for an out, and i have found one - a job that fits all the necessary things i need to apply to an institution that's not mine - and maybe, well, i'll do it. things are slowing, and it's time for a change. my feet itch, i am hungry, my palms are open, open open, and i want to drink the world up. of course there is potential here, but the quiet, the streets, the wideness of the streets have done me in. the lack of frottage on streets with strangers just trying to struggle to work, the smell of the air... i want a city to open me up and bleed me dry for a bit. and not just little interludes. i want it to take me again, something new, somewhere new, anything, just shifting off again...
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
orange juice
it's cheap, nasty orange juice. i am wary of my tea cup; i came to work this morning and there were traces of mold starting to grow on the surface of the tea i'd left there for a few days.
i'm listening to more xiu xiu. i love falling in love with bands who have back catalogues to trawl through and dig into and hide under and wrap around yourself until you are buried. new album presents to myself every other week. i'm trying to not download illegally as much as possible, especially music i love. there's not really a justification, morally for how it can be ok to do this. i can afford it on my Librarian Pay.
my hands are covered in small cuts from a broken light bulb. there's cheese on the floor at home; a candelabra on a Give Way sign on the floor, and a melted wax pile on the carpet in the middle of the room. we've got more side-of-the-road furniture - the house slowly filling with things found, others detritus gathering weight in our living space.
i am losing all sense of perspective. it is hard to see what is close and what is accessible, and what is realistic and what i've imagined now. it could be all impossibilities or i could be sitting on a landmine, or a goldmine... but it does not change, oh no, impossible things, it does not change.
i'm listening to more xiu xiu. i love falling in love with bands who have back catalogues to trawl through and dig into and hide under and wrap around yourself until you are buried. new album presents to myself every other week. i'm trying to not download illegally as much as possible, especially music i love. there's not really a justification, morally for how it can be ok to do this. i can afford it on my Librarian Pay.
my hands are covered in small cuts from a broken light bulb. there's cheese on the floor at home; a candelabra on a Give Way sign on the floor, and a melted wax pile on the carpet in the middle of the room. we've got more side-of-the-road furniture - the house slowly filling with things found, others detritus gathering weight in our living space.
i am losing all sense of perspective. it is hard to see what is close and what is accessible, and what is realistic and what i've imagined now. it could be all impossibilities or i could be sitting on a landmine, or a goldmine... but it does not change, oh no, impossible things, it does not change.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
more xiu xiu
i'm sleepwalking today, loyal reader/s.
and i love the valley oh! and i am tired, and sluggish, and not sure how alive i am today. i am waiting. it's a becoming time, not a being time. i am in the space, filling it a little too small, and a little too sleepy to feel like i am actually there. i feel like i am half somewhere else. far away, and fragmented. i need more coffee.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
recycled paper.
boredom undoes me, on the largest possible bloody scale. i am ripped forth, and would happily invert my own body if it meant i would have some sort of stimulation. i run slow without some sort of energy to butt my mind against, slower and slower, and as it sinks back, something inside of me moves faster and faster, equal and opposite, running away from whatever it is i am trying to do to sustain balance.
one of the earliest dreams i can remember was, as a child, being in a grey room filled with towering people, heads taller than me. i was short, and they were all long and thin, with leathery skin. it was a warehouse, and the air was grey. the thing was though, they were all speaking in my head, in a room of voices that sped up, then slowed down, then sped up again. they raced against each other, and against myself, and i could keep track, but it was uneven and frightening. my whole childhood, my own internal monologue would periodically reflect this, racing up, slowing down to a snail's drawn out pace, then speeding up again.
it was a precursor perhaps to being bipolar.
i don't dislike it. sometimes, i am frustrated at the fact it makes me question what i actually am, or if i actually am. it's the lapse of reality; the psychotic tendencies of the condition making the continuum of reality a little more slippery than it is supposed to be. but my reluctance to accept the labeling of my mind's workings as nothing more than a fallacy, resulting from wrong synapses is fairly solidly linked to being told i was possessed by satan, and my mind again, was not mine, and was just an incorrect set of laws being incorrectly applied. only now, it's not god's plan, but a biochemical one, or something. i think i can judge what i do well. i think i know when i am pushing things just because i'm bored, and frustrated, and wanting something MORE. i think this is clear to me.
what i need, what i crave so much is that communication, that friction of mind against body against words against flesh, that connects on some improper level and makes me feel properly alive. i feel the energy coil inside of me, and i want it to swell out and dissipate and take me on. it's satisfied, partly, in words. words and books and paper and sorting, and the fleshiness of language, and the communication, the movement of the words inside of me. it is satisfied too, with risks. i take risks not because i am masochistic, but because i get bored. there is a vortex inside of me, and it swells out darkly, and hungrily, and i will push risks into it in order to feel it properly.
people suggest that creativity will fill this. i need a few more though. i don't get like this when i have sex. creativity. intimacy. madness. warmth. books. those things stop the push pull run.
and i get fucking tired of being sensible. i chose sensible. i've chosen it so many fucking times. i've resisted urges for drama and madness or even goodness and fun, over a safer, 'smarter' pathway. i am here, in a city i loath, for a job that will take me wonderful places, and here i stay, feet itching, one step after another, trying to keep going, determined as i can be. i need to write more, i know this. i need to exercise more. that helps as well. i need an outlet, a place, a force, a focus. something to occupy the constant jittery feeling under my skin i get from time to time.
and i don't care what is the supposed theory. i don't think it's just chemistry, i don't think it's just the fact that there's something that doesn't quite work properly in my brain. it works differently. but the risks i take are often considered, often curious, often evaluated, and i either push the evaluation away, or i just don't care because i want to see what'll happen. and i just want to let go. i want a space where all these things i hold together can let go. everything is constantly on a tight reign, muzzled like a wild dog, hungry, hungry. i sit here, and i look so calm, and so neutral, but fuck, there's madness just inches away, and i get so tired of keeping it there. day after day i do it. i cook. clean. try and sort out extra clothes. feed pets. cuddle bunnies. go to the pet store to play with the kittens because i worry they don't get enough love while they are waiting for their forever homes. i get coffee. i jump in the leaves by the side of the road. sometimes i go to the park. i look for snails for my lizards to eat, and i let them crawl across my hands. i try not to drink too much. i watch Doctor Who. i keep it going, tightly, tightly. just wanting to let it all go.
one of the earliest dreams i can remember was, as a child, being in a grey room filled with towering people, heads taller than me. i was short, and they were all long and thin, with leathery skin. it was a warehouse, and the air was grey. the thing was though, they were all speaking in my head, in a room of voices that sped up, then slowed down, then sped up again. they raced against each other, and against myself, and i could keep track, but it was uneven and frightening. my whole childhood, my own internal monologue would periodically reflect this, racing up, slowing down to a snail's drawn out pace, then speeding up again.
it was a precursor perhaps to being bipolar.
i don't dislike it. sometimes, i am frustrated at the fact it makes me question what i actually am, or if i actually am. it's the lapse of reality; the psychotic tendencies of the condition making the continuum of reality a little more slippery than it is supposed to be. but my reluctance to accept the labeling of my mind's workings as nothing more than a fallacy, resulting from wrong synapses is fairly solidly linked to being told i was possessed by satan, and my mind again, was not mine, and was just an incorrect set of laws being incorrectly applied. only now, it's not god's plan, but a biochemical one, or something. i think i can judge what i do well. i think i know when i am pushing things just because i'm bored, and frustrated, and wanting something MORE. i think this is clear to me.
what i need, what i crave so much is that communication, that friction of mind against body against words against flesh, that connects on some improper level and makes me feel properly alive. i feel the energy coil inside of me, and i want it to swell out and dissipate and take me on. it's satisfied, partly, in words. words and books and paper and sorting, and the fleshiness of language, and the communication, the movement of the words inside of me. it is satisfied too, with risks. i take risks not because i am masochistic, but because i get bored. there is a vortex inside of me, and it swells out darkly, and hungrily, and i will push risks into it in order to feel it properly.
people suggest that creativity will fill this. i need a few more though. i don't get like this when i have sex. creativity. intimacy. madness. warmth. books. those things stop the push pull run.
and i get fucking tired of being sensible. i chose sensible. i've chosen it so many fucking times. i've resisted urges for drama and madness or even goodness and fun, over a safer, 'smarter' pathway. i am here, in a city i loath, for a job that will take me wonderful places, and here i stay, feet itching, one step after another, trying to keep going, determined as i can be. i need to write more, i know this. i need to exercise more. that helps as well. i need an outlet, a place, a force, a focus. something to occupy the constant jittery feeling under my skin i get from time to time.
and i don't care what is the supposed theory. i don't think it's just chemistry, i don't think it's just the fact that there's something that doesn't quite work properly in my brain. it works differently. but the risks i take are often considered, often curious, often evaluated, and i either push the evaluation away, or i just don't care because i want to see what'll happen. and i just want to let go. i want a space where all these things i hold together can let go. everything is constantly on a tight reign, muzzled like a wild dog, hungry, hungry. i sit here, and i look so calm, and so neutral, but fuck, there's madness just inches away, and i get so tired of keeping it there. day after day i do it. i cook. clean. try and sort out extra clothes. feed pets. cuddle bunnies. go to the pet store to play with the kittens because i worry they don't get enough love while they are waiting for their forever homes. i get coffee. i jump in the leaves by the side of the road. sometimes i go to the park. i look for snails for my lizards to eat, and i let them crawl across my hands. i try not to drink too much. i watch Doctor Who. i keep it going, tightly, tightly. just wanting to let it all go.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
sharp teeth
dig dig dig dig dig it deeper into the flesh, into the flesh.
the city folded away from me, like rumpled sheets shifting off my body crawling out of bed, but i want to go back in there, and dive away the hours, naked and raw. the lights flickered off and the onion layers peeled off the cement towers in the sky that shrank and folded off me as we drove, the lines, the blackness, the shaking hands, the small hands, the heart in throat, the slipperiness.
i can feel, preemptively, teeth marks on my neck. i can feel skin i've not tasted on the edge of my lips, and i can feel my feet slip, and my hands slip, and i can feel the memories rise and fall and my eyes grip on tight, tighter than my knuckles, death grip, white and don't let go now, oh no, this is not the time to let go....
and what i need now are words. i need to make them dance. i need to make them sing, i need to make them so glorious the world falls apart. please. i don't want to let go now. because now, i'm hungry.
the city folded away from me, like rumpled sheets shifting off my body crawling out of bed, but i want to go back in there, and dive away the hours, naked and raw. the lights flickered off and the onion layers peeled off the cement towers in the sky that shrank and folded off me as we drove, the lines, the blackness, the shaking hands, the small hands, the heart in throat, the slipperiness.
i can feel, preemptively, teeth marks on my neck. i can feel skin i've not tasted on the edge of my lips, and i can feel my feet slip, and my hands slip, and i can feel the memories rise and fall and my eyes grip on tight, tighter than my knuckles, death grip, white and don't let go now, oh no, this is not the time to let go....
and what i need now are words. i need to make them dance. i need to make them sing, i need to make them so glorious the world falls apart. please. i don't want to let go now. because now, i'm hungry.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
fresh fresh easter taste
oh yes, i wake up, and it's the same as before.
but yes, oh yes, it's shifted in that irrevocable way.
it irritates me that my mind is only ignited, so randomly, like this from moment to moment. sometimes there's weeks of sneaking and sliding. but now, no. this time, i fell. and fell. and over arse over hands, i am gone.
i was at a friend's studio in sydney. it was the most beautiful room i think i've ever been to. i fetishise white. i am a minimalist at heart, i am wet over ryman, and white walls, and the denseness of the gallery white. and this room was clouded, drenched, milked in marble dust on every surface. it coated the floor, footsteps burrowed into the white, and the light that filtered through split into fragments from the airborne stone. i wanted to die in there. i wanted to be buried, and let the soft flower white stone sink into me, into my body, fucked with the white, fucked over and under this emptiness, this negation.
but yes, oh yes, it's shifted in that irrevocable way.
it irritates me that my mind is only ignited, so randomly, like this from moment to moment. sometimes there's weeks of sneaking and sliding. but now, no. this time, i fell. and fell. and over arse over hands, i am gone.
i was at a friend's studio in sydney. it was the most beautiful room i think i've ever been to. i fetishise white. i am a minimalist at heart, i am wet over ryman, and white walls, and the denseness of the gallery white. and this room was clouded, drenched, milked in marble dust on every surface. it coated the floor, footsteps burrowed into the white, and the light that filtered through split into fragments from the airborne stone. i wanted to die in there. i wanted to be buried, and let the soft flower white stone sink into me, into my body, fucked with the white, fucked over and under this emptiness, this negation.
and yes. it happens again like this.
you cut her name into your heart
you burn his name into your arm
cast out the pig you kiss as love
heaven is closed for now you are alone
this too, this too shall pass away
this too, this too will pass away
listen, Steven is singing to you
the pain of life you wipe away
a reason, that fine gray ash shall
recall these days
inquire
the serpent
to become a rag of a dream
interred
you arrive
and you wave as if she could care
but she can't
nor can you
the relinquishing and a flickering
out of loss
this too, this too shall pass away
this too, this too shall fade away
listen, Steven is singing to us
the pain of life you wipe away
perhaps depraved is who you are
why not?
depraved at least you're not alone
overcome by the truth you face that you can't
get up or look up
at the moon
without throwing up and it
stay the same all the time
lie and wait
it stop again like a bee
it will die
when it stings you once
and its small bee's head will fall off
this too, this too shall pass away
this pain will pass away
listen, Steven is singing to you
the pain of life you wipe away
oh oh oh, it always sneaks up behind you like some dirty black dog, like some silent angry cloud, like some wet sheet on your head, like a dream, like a dream, like a dream...
there's sweat here, it's hot and enclosed and my shirt is sticking to me, and my hair is coiled into ringlets from the heat and i am letting go like i am fucking a stranger drunk, and i am yelling lyrics, and i am jumping my fist in the air, my lungs hurting, my tongue bitten, my thighs light, my arse pressed against bodies against bodies and crawling arms around and over me and under.
impossible feeling
i sat against the glass window pressed face against glass, listening to xiu xiu on the bus. there were more cows than i could count blurring passed me, impossible exchange, impossible exchange.
i will stick to leather, and i will listen, and it feels like my heart is being forced out of my ears. only realising this sneaking up on me as i am there, sticking to leather, and fuck, where did this come from? where the FUCK did this come from?
it's always dug into my heart that first point of contact when things start to fall into place, or away. and this one, elizabeth? this is unusually stupid, even for you.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
xiu xiu
this is making me deliciously happy. i've listened to it on repeat over and over for the last twenty four hours. it's one of those faster moving times where i find music again and it takes me HOME. fast and warm.
i often fall in love with love. and then i draw back to people, and i am back with myself again. that is where i am now, and i can see that, and it's ok, if a little bit sad because i want to drown again. but i'm waiting, biding my time.
off to sydney today - seeing Gogol Bordello - booked tickets to see The Mountain Goats as well. i'm going to do another list in here of bands i have seen - had one in my old outdated blog which needs refreshing. my tummy is bulging out, i don't know if it's additional weight or what. bus leaves at four. the bus smooths me over, i love it, i love it. especially with headphones in, it's going to be such a pleasant trip. i will make a playlist, oh YES> that will be fun. and books. raymond carver, kawabata, maybe some poetry, and iris murdoch? something thick, it's four hours, and i always end up finishing what i buy to read quickly. maybe time to finally get off butt and read '100 years of solitude'? yes. likely. good idea.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
...
... i feel astonishingly isolated right now.
not sure if this is for any substantial reason, or if i just drank too much, or if i am lonely, or if i am overtired, or just stressed with uni. but i feel closed out. not even lonely, that's not the right word, but like i've been trapped inside a cage and put in a box.
it's as though the gray dirt under my nails is crawling deeper below my fingers. and into my arms. and down inside my blood. i am gathering energy, as much as i can, from being around people, but i feel so cut off from myself that it's desperate. i have pmt thought, so it's just chemistry fucking with my head. nothing other than the balance of chemicals in my body are making this happen.
not sure if this is for any substantial reason, or if i just drank too much, or if i am lonely, or if i am overtired, or just stressed with uni. but i feel closed out. not even lonely, that's not the right word, but like i've been trapped inside a cage and put in a box.
it's as though the gray dirt under my nails is crawling deeper below my fingers. and into my arms. and down inside my blood. i am gathering energy, as much as i can, from being around people, but i feel so cut off from myself that it's desperate. i have pmt thought, so it's just chemistry fucking with my head. nothing other than the balance of chemicals in my body are making this happen.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
sleepless
curiouser and curiouser.
i am a sleepy kitten by nature. i doze when i shouldn't, i sleep all day if i can, and it's easy for me to drop off the wire.
and right now, as it's been for EVERY night for the last few weeks, (pretty much since i started the breakfast eating thing), i am awake after one am, functional, clear thoughts, unable to sleep, unable to even get close. not manic energy either. it's just .... awake. blurry, perhaps a little? but it's not asleep, it's not close.
right now, i am walking. each day, when i walk, i focus on the way i put my feet on the ground. this is less obscure than you would think - my feet roll over onto the arch when i walk - they always have. a strange, small part of me has always blamed myself - as though this was happening because i was lazy, and i didn't be bothered walking properly. that's just not true - it's to do with a tendon being too short, bones becoming deformed in my feet, and muscle memory. but now, when i walk, i focus on how my feet fall, on each muscle and movement, and how to make them push into the ground and off the ground, the rolling of bones next to each other, that soreness i always have in my feet that little bit rougher from the tensing of tendons, and stretching and grinding in different ways.
i am not sure if this sort of active walking helps my life in any way. i am restless and draped in that ennui again, waiting waiting for something dramatic to happen. i am sleep walking but awake, so awake, wanting to be dragged feet first out into the street and shown to the world again. here i am waiting, waiting, waiting for something to take me, arms outstretched and head thrown to the sky, waiting. it's blank idealism wanting this, wanting huge emotions to sweep me off my feet. the passions keep getting dimmer, now. i fee softer degrees, more subtle shifts. but i want that madness again. i want to be drunk on passion and lust and love. i want to want to lie in bed memorising someone's face. i am grabbing at this feeling and it slips away before it forms into substance. i need to let go.
i am a sleepy kitten by nature. i doze when i shouldn't, i sleep all day if i can, and it's easy for me to drop off the wire.
and right now, as it's been for EVERY night for the last few weeks, (pretty much since i started the breakfast eating thing), i am awake after one am, functional, clear thoughts, unable to sleep, unable to even get close. not manic energy either. it's just .... awake. blurry, perhaps a little? but it's not asleep, it's not close.
right now, i am walking. each day, when i walk, i focus on the way i put my feet on the ground. this is less obscure than you would think - my feet roll over onto the arch when i walk - they always have. a strange, small part of me has always blamed myself - as though this was happening because i was lazy, and i didn't be bothered walking properly. that's just not true - it's to do with a tendon being too short, bones becoming deformed in my feet, and muscle memory. but now, when i walk, i focus on how my feet fall, on each muscle and movement, and how to make them push into the ground and off the ground, the rolling of bones next to each other, that soreness i always have in my feet that little bit rougher from the tensing of tendons, and stretching and grinding in different ways.
i am not sure if this sort of active walking helps my life in any way. i am restless and draped in that ennui again, waiting waiting for something dramatic to happen. i am sleep walking but awake, so awake, wanting to be dragged feet first out into the street and shown to the world again. here i am waiting, waiting, waiting for something to take me, arms outstretched and head thrown to the sky, waiting. it's blank idealism wanting this, wanting huge emotions to sweep me off my feet. the passions keep getting dimmer, now. i fee softer degrees, more subtle shifts. but i want that madness again. i want to be drunk on passion and lust and love. i want to want to lie in bed memorising someone's face. i am grabbing at this feeling and it slips away before it forms into substance. i need to let go.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
awake
and alert.
i work in a Very Big library.
i don't mention work on here much. it's a conscious decision - not because i don't love my job - i am a rare person who does - but more due to a desire to keep work separate. i am thinking of starting a blog about issues relevant to the library industry. but i probably won't. i am not obsessive about remaining nameless online, it's not like i say anything here that's compromising, or will have me arrested. but at the same time, it's not important to be attached to me. it's sort of nice that it's not, that i put it out there, quiet, in the space of the great unread of the great unwashed. not that i mind if people do read. but nor do i care if they don't. it's not why i write.
pushing back the book-buying urges. quiet now. i felt myself sliding earlier, somewhere darker and darker as the day ticked passed. but i am stopping, and digging in my heels, and trying to hold my own. i can. i know i can.
i work in a Very Big library.
i don't mention work on here much. it's a conscious decision - not because i don't love my job - i am a rare person who does - but more due to a desire to keep work separate. i am thinking of starting a blog about issues relevant to the library industry. but i probably won't. i am not obsessive about remaining nameless online, it's not like i say anything here that's compromising, or will have me arrested. but at the same time, it's not important to be attached to me. it's sort of nice that it's not, that i put it out there, quiet, in the space of the great unread of the great unwashed. not that i mind if people do read. but nor do i care if they don't. it's not why i write.
pushing back the book-buying urges. quiet now. i felt myself sliding earlier, somewhere darker and darker as the day ticked passed. but i am stopping, and digging in my heels, and trying to hold my own. i can. i know i can.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
don't be angry
I have to sneak in and put on your clothes
You will know where I’ve been
But I need the protection
Oh what a strange and miraculous thing
Finally recognise what is driving me crazy
All that I want was here now it’s gone
All that I want was here now it’s gone
Don’t be angry
I don’t disagree
It is clear that I left
My clothes on the highway
And I’d like to know
If you ever told
You said if I could have once
Given your life some meaning
All that I want was here now it's gone
All that I want was here now it's gone
All that I want was here now it's gone
Don’t be angry
I will die lonely
Don’t be angry
I will die lonely
Don’t be angry
I will die lonely
Don’t argue
'Cause you will see
That I will die so very lonely
Don’t be angry
Don’t be angry
the organ
new band.
wonderful new band. repeat listening, falling in love sort of band.
i just finished The Road
by Cormac McCarthy. the movie was solid and difficult, and so was the book. it was beautiful and gray and now i feel along and like i need to hide under blankets and like the gray ash is falling, falling over me, until i cannot breathe, oh god, peel back, peel back, and stop it now....
and i want to fall. i want to lose it. i want to let it all go and fly far far away again, off away away away into another magical place where it is all more real and more alive and i can dive away, dive away and let it take me.
wonderful new band. repeat listening, falling in love sort of band.
i just finished The Road
by Cormac McCarthy. the movie was solid and difficult, and so was the book. it was beautiful and gray and now i feel along and like i need to hide under blankets and like the gray ash is falling, falling over me, until i cannot breathe, oh god, peel back, peel back, and stop it now....and i want to fall. i want to lose it. i want to let it all go and fly far far away again, off away away away into another magical place where it is all more real and more alive and i can dive away, dive away and let it take me.
Monday, March 15, 2010
disintegration
perhaps one way of putting it is when, suddenly, your heart expands. you are just there, breathing, but it feels like your heart is growing wider and wider and swallowing another body into your flesh. your blood beats through to the end of your fingers, but your heart beats over them as well, because, well, because it is enormous what you feel, and you are so so alive in them, and alive in yourself.
sometimes it happens slowly, growing over you gently. and you do not know where it is, or where they are, but only that they are alive in you, and you in them, pieces, pieces, but they are not fragments, they are whole. and it doesn't matter how many people you love like this, there is always space for more, because this feeling is enormous. it is here, and it is on the other side of the country, and it is on the other side of the earth, or maybe sitting next to you, just there, just there.
and other times, you will just be sitting, breathing tight for some reason, almost gasping for air, and suddenly it shudders over you, and you are there, oh god, you are on the edge and it is cascading across you, under you, inside of you, consuming like a hungry ghost, and god, yes, yes, i want it, i want it now, i want it so heavy and badly, and i do not know how this happened. pressed against each other, heartbeats chasing each other like greyhounds, who is beating faster? no race, no stopping, no starting, it just balloons out and takes you down, over and over again, it is always the same. it is always new. it is always the same. it is never like anything else.
sometimes it happens slowly, growing over you gently. and you do not know where it is, or where they are, but only that they are alive in you, and you in them, pieces, pieces, but they are not fragments, they are whole. and it doesn't matter how many people you love like this, there is always space for more, because this feeling is enormous. it is here, and it is on the other side of the country, and it is on the other side of the earth, or maybe sitting next to you, just there, just there.
and other times, you will just be sitting, breathing tight for some reason, almost gasping for air, and suddenly it shudders over you, and you are there, oh god, you are on the edge and it is cascading across you, under you, inside of you, consuming like a hungry ghost, and god, yes, yes, i want it, i want it now, i want it so heavy and badly, and i do not know how this happened. pressed against each other, heartbeats chasing each other like greyhounds, who is beating faster? no race, no stopping, no starting, it just balloons out and takes you down, over and over again, it is always the same. it is always new. it is always the same. it is never like anything else.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
erratic
sleep is erratic
moods are erratic.
yoga slows me down, evens out the pattern a little. but i do not feel all here or there, just scattered, scattered all over the place.
i am awake when i should be asleep and sleeping upside down all day. i am not sure if i feel sick, or if i am just not eating enough. this isn't a depressed post - i'm not unhappy, just erratic. things are shifting under my skin, i forgot how it feels when your skin slips away and that movement below you starts to shudder and you lose touch with the ground and you start to ... fall... i don't know if it is beautiful or terrifying or meaningless. i don't know where it is, and even as i get older, i am still stabbing in the dark.
i'd like to make it all simple again, reduce my life back and back, receed it. was there some point where i started twisting the patterns into more and more detailed, messy loops and i forgot how to draw the lines clearly? i can't even remember when it started. i would have been 14 or so, i guess, maybe that was the marker, or when i fell in love with words and emailed from an invisible face at the other end of the lake. i think that was it, 16 and digging a hole. that was ten years ago. it was ten years ago, now. how did that happen? how the fuck did it happen that i'm 26 in a month or so? i don't understand how all those years folded behind me - my mind is not holding them tight, the moments slip away, faster and faster, and what have i hear? i hold out my hands and i am scared because i still do not know where i am going. i still feel like a child. i still feel blind. do we ever get any sort of footing?
i'm finding meaning in music. it's hazy, yeah, but i feel something clearer coming out of the fog. i'm not strong, i'm not strong. i feel fragile and easily broken, and that's what it is, you know, the reservations are slipping away and i cannot contain this feeling, i cannot contain it, and this, this is not the way i was heading.
but i've got that taste in my mouth again.
moods are erratic.
yoga slows me down, evens out the pattern a little. but i do not feel all here or there, just scattered, scattered all over the place.
i am awake when i should be asleep and sleeping upside down all day. i am not sure if i feel sick, or if i am just not eating enough. this isn't a depressed post - i'm not unhappy, just erratic. things are shifting under my skin, i forgot how it feels when your skin slips away and that movement below you starts to shudder and you lose touch with the ground and you start to ... fall... i don't know if it is beautiful or terrifying or meaningless. i don't know where it is, and even as i get older, i am still stabbing in the dark.
i'd like to make it all simple again, reduce my life back and back, receed it. was there some point where i started twisting the patterns into more and more detailed, messy loops and i forgot how to draw the lines clearly? i can't even remember when it started. i would have been 14 or so, i guess, maybe that was the marker, or when i fell in love with words and emailed from an invisible face at the other end of the lake. i think that was it, 16 and digging a hole. that was ten years ago. it was ten years ago, now. how did that happen? how the fuck did it happen that i'm 26 in a month or so? i don't understand how all those years folded behind me - my mind is not holding them tight, the moments slip away, faster and faster, and what have i hear? i hold out my hands and i am scared because i still do not know where i am going. i still feel like a child. i still feel blind. do we ever get any sort of footing?
i'm finding meaning in music. it's hazy, yeah, but i feel something clearer coming out of the fog. i'm not strong, i'm not strong. i feel fragile and easily broken, and that's what it is, you know, the reservations are slipping away and i cannot contain this feeling, i cannot contain it, and this, this is not the way i was heading.
but i've got that taste in my mouth again.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
settling
a different sort of settled.
listening to The Mountain Goats now, to the wonderful happiness that is 'The Sunset Tree'.
ok, maybe i'm not settled. maybe that's not quite it. maybe there's a sneaking sort of feeling, a tiny elephant in my room. perhaps there's something there, and i'm not wanting to look at it because i don't know what it'll mean. another piece in the puzzle? another start? are the pieces starting to drop? are the balls slipping down the wire?
i could get used to it.
there are things and times that become monumental, moments in life that simmer and burn deeper into memory into others. they are the ones i pick up and pass around my mind like a beautiful little shiny object, glimmering and precious, that needs to be handled. they make a brightly coloured glitter tube of things i've done, and people i've loved, and places. i think i might be on the edge of some, because things are shifting out and around and the arrangement of my life is becoming something slightly different again.
i always go back to the cliff on bowen tce, in my mind. i imagine myself standing on that cliff, staring out there. i wonder why, sometimes, it's the most vivid way in my mind of summing up brisbane. i took lovers there, yes, but i took lovers in my bed more often. somehow, that place captures a place i was mentally more than any other location. i remember the time H and i got drunk on lust and red wine with J. we ended up in a sexually tense ball around him, and J slept on the floor and H in my bed, and i could feel them both there, my beautiful boys... i broke up with H there, and i cried, cried cried there whenever i was left alone, and emptied. i was there, bitten by mosquitoes before running away to J's place and crashing there, the night we slept together.
i climbed the fence and stood on the cliff face with S once. he was a virtual stranger, but i feel in love with him hard and fast and beautifully, and that was all we needed. not even sex, not even touching, but something else on the cliff's edge, his long lank shoulders...
my friends, my lovers elsewhere, when i think of taking them to brisbane, that's where i take them in my mind. i want to paint them into that place and show them that, because i feel like it holds something essential about myself. i want to take B there, more than anyone in the world. i want to jump the fence with her, and hold her hand, dangling our feet over the edge. the cliff is huge, large enough to kill you if you fell, easily. it doesn't feel dangerous. it feels safe as you look over the river and the bridge and the building and the streets and you are THERE and i am THERE, and i would take her there and we would drink goon from the carton and draw on each other's hands with felt pens.
listening to The Mountain Goats now, to the wonderful happiness that is 'The Sunset Tree'.
ok, maybe i'm not settled. maybe that's not quite it. maybe there's a sneaking sort of feeling, a tiny elephant in my room. perhaps there's something there, and i'm not wanting to look at it because i don't know what it'll mean. another piece in the puzzle? another start? are the pieces starting to drop? are the balls slipping down the wire?
i could get used to it.
there are things and times that become monumental, moments in life that simmer and burn deeper into memory into others. they are the ones i pick up and pass around my mind like a beautiful little shiny object, glimmering and precious, that needs to be handled. they make a brightly coloured glitter tube of things i've done, and people i've loved, and places. i think i might be on the edge of some, because things are shifting out and around and the arrangement of my life is becoming something slightly different again.
i always go back to the cliff on bowen tce, in my mind. i imagine myself standing on that cliff, staring out there. i wonder why, sometimes, it's the most vivid way in my mind of summing up brisbane. i took lovers there, yes, but i took lovers in my bed more often. somehow, that place captures a place i was mentally more than any other location. i remember the time H and i got drunk on lust and red wine with J. we ended up in a sexually tense ball around him, and J slept on the floor and H in my bed, and i could feel them both there, my beautiful boys... i broke up with H there, and i cried, cried cried there whenever i was left alone, and emptied. i was there, bitten by mosquitoes before running away to J's place and crashing there, the night we slept together.
i climbed the fence and stood on the cliff face with S once. he was a virtual stranger, but i feel in love with him hard and fast and beautifully, and that was all we needed. not even sex, not even touching, but something else on the cliff's edge, his long lank shoulders...
my friends, my lovers elsewhere, when i think of taking them to brisbane, that's where i take them in my mind. i want to paint them into that place and show them that, because i feel like it holds something essential about myself. i want to take B there, more than anyone in the world. i want to jump the fence with her, and hold her hand, dangling our feet over the edge. the cliff is huge, large enough to kill you if you fell, easily. it doesn't feel dangerous. it feels safe as you look over the river and the bridge and the building and the streets and you are THERE and i am THERE, and i would take her there and we would drink goon from the carton and draw on each other's hands with felt pens.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
books and paper and f a l l i n g
two day book binding course that's excellent.
i miss b.
my floor is unusually clear at the moment, there is a strange amount of carpet available for strolling on, pacing. i think this is what makes me miss b- the last time i had this much carpet, she was here too. sigh.
teen novels, feeling slightly off colour, strangely, wanting to re-arrange books, touching around the edges.
slipping grips on edges, sweeeet oblivion roll over me until i forget my name or where i am or what ever happened or how i got there and all i have is this second; everything else eroded until i am a shadow, i am breathing and shuddering and take me take me take me.... and hold tight, little hands, hold on so tight you can't breathe, because you cannot fall. you cannot fall. there is too much at stake, and you cannot fall. but hand. over. hand. it takes you by surprise sometimes.
but it feels good to be dizzy again.
i miss b.
my floor is unusually clear at the moment, there is a strange amount of carpet available for strolling on, pacing. i think this is what makes me miss b- the last time i had this much carpet, she was here too. sigh.
teen novels, feeling slightly off colour, strangely, wanting to re-arrange books, touching around the edges.
slipping grips on edges, sweeeet oblivion roll over me until i forget my name or where i am or what ever happened or how i got there and all i have is this second; everything else eroded until i am a shadow, i am breathing and shuddering and take me take me take me.... and hold tight, little hands, hold on so tight you can't breathe, because you cannot fall. you cannot fall. there is too much at stake, and you cannot fall. but hand. over. hand. it takes you by surprise sometimes.
but it feels good to be dizzy again.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
bus trips
there's something marvellous about the trip from canberra to sydney via bus. i like road trips, i like sitting and watching the green and blue and space move past me.
i read "the easter parade" by richard yates on the way to sydney. it was... utterly marvellous. 
despite the fact the content was ... depressing is the wrong word, - it's a fairly relentless book, and not a lot of good things happen to the characters, but the intimacy you gain with the two women and their mother, their memories and regrets and loves and their aging is a tremendous thing.
i have been thinking a lot about aging lately. some morbid, some confused, some frightened. we live in an unsatisfying cult of youth and gratification and purchasing our way to happiness. it's easy to get caught up in it. it's Lazy to get caught up in it.
last night, i felt back breakingly lonely when i was lying in bed. i texted a friend who is sometimes, the wisest person i know. his actions can lie about this, but under the delusion and confusion and the lust that clouds my vision in relation to him, his mind is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen.
i asked him if he got lonely.
he said:
i get lonely when i compare myself to another person or expectation. i feel immersed and unbound when nouns do not seize control. allow the universe to universe, the pamphlet to pamphlet, and the idiot to idiot; then i pursue my own ignorance in the ecosystem i have chosen. (loneliness often rides w ignorance).
next time i feel lonely, i'm going to remember this. i am going to gather it around me like dirty red sheets and bundle it under me like books and learning, and wrap it under my neck like a cowl. my bunnies will talk to me without nouns, and i'll give all my books to strangers who don't love them, and i'll burn my clothes until all i am left with are leggings for yoga that are hideous but comfortable. this won't make me free, but it will make me move.
i read "the easter parade" by richard yates on the way to sydney. it was... utterly marvellous. despite the fact the content was ... depressing is the wrong word, - it's a fairly relentless book, and not a lot of good things happen to the characters, but the intimacy you gain with the two women and their mother, their memories and regrets and loves and their aging is a tremendous thing.i have been thinking a lot about aging lately. some morbid, some confused, some frightened. we live in an unsatisfying cult of youth and gratification and purchasing our way to happiness. it's easy to get caught up in it. it's Lazy to get caught up in it.
last night, i felt back breakingly lonely when i was lying in bed. i texted a friend who is sometimes, the wisest person i know. his actions can lie about this, but under the delusion and confusion and the lust that clouds my vision in relation to him, his mind is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen.
i asked him if he got lonely.
he said:
i get lonely when i compare myself to another person or expectation. i feel immersed and unbound when nouns do not seize control. allow the universe to universe, the pamphlet to pamphlet, and the idiot to idiot; then i pursue my own ignorance in the ecosystem i have chosen. (loneliness often rides w ignorance).
next time i feel lonely, i'm going to remember this. i am going to gather it around me like dirty red sheets and bundle it under me like books and learning, and wrap it under my neck like a cowl. my bunnies will talk to me without nouns, and i'll give all my books to strangers who don't love them, and i'll burn my clothes until all i am left with are leggings for yoga that are hideous but comfortable. this won't make me free, but it will make me move.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
little
bunnies. music. i baked a pie.
at the moment, little bunny has a box in his house. he sits on it, all day long, content, staring at the wall. the lid of his house will be open - he'll jump out, only to run straight back in, back onto the box... sitting there a bit more.
personally, i love them. they are gentle and small, and use gentle small words. they crawl into your mind, and over your body, and all of a sudden, you are thinking about vegan shoplifting hamsters, and you feel enchanted and disenchanted at the same time. i don't know if i enjoy them the most out of all poetry i've read recently - Carol Ann Duffy resonates more, moves me more. but the subtly of the colouring of boredom, solitude, confusion, the breakdown of a relationship, sitting on gmail chat talking shit for hours rather than doing anything, eating vegan food to be moral, and... what i best call ennui, is what he paints so well, and it is when you read a collection of them that they creep up on you.
at the moment, little bunny has a box in his house. he sits on it, all day long, content, staring at the wall. the lid of his house will be open - he'll jump out, only to run straight back in, back onto the box... sitting there a bit more.
oh little man, scruffy little face and snuffle nose...
the thing i find interesting about so much debate about Tao Lin's poetry is that people keep asking 'is it poetry?' (a post on HTMLgiant ... HERE) - it seems a sort of empty question to me. what is poetry? what is art? what is writing? these are not interesting questions, because the point is not the word. the point is what it is. how does it make you feel? why do you like his writing or dislike it? what do you like or dislike about it? most importantly, if you don't think it is poetry, why not? what makes it not poetry? what would make it poetry? should they be read individually? as a whole? how does this change what is written? or how you read it?
personally, i love them. they are gentle and small, and use gentle small words. they crawl into your mind, and over your body, and all of a sudden, you are thinking about vegan shoplifting hamsters, and you feel enchanted and disenchanted at the same time. i don't know if i enjoy them the most out of all poetry i've read recently - Carol Ann Duffy resonates more, moves me more. but the subtly of the colouring of boredom, solitude, confusion, the breakdown of a relationship, sitting on gmail chat talking shit for hours rather than doing anything, eating vegan food to be moral, and... what i best call ennui, is what he paints so well, and it is when you read a collection of them that they creep up on you.my monologue after reading maybe 30, 40 pages of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Poetry
starts to slow down, and stutter along blank lines. it observes and sinks into my brain. and the words empty out of what you see. it is a day to day observation. it is a step from one foot to the next, point by point. and i like that, and i don't see why that isn't poetry, or why it can't be.
starts to slow down, and stutter along blank lines. it observes and sinks into my brain. and the words empty out of what you see. it is a day to day observation. it is a step from one foot to the next, point by point. and i like that, and i don't see why that isn't poetry, or why it can't be.Tuesday, March 2, 2010
heavy
sometimes i wonder why i fight it. and then i remember.
but yeah. i spent today in bed, sleeping. when i say that, i don't mean lying around, relaxing. i was asleep until three pm, unbroken. i was in bed by 11pm the previous night. i'm not upset, or mentally fucked at the moment - i feel fragile, and soft, and easily knocked, but i am not depressed, just sore. and tired. and unable to move properly.
books. got huge new pile of wonderful, delicious books. read one so far -
i read it on sunday, and it was soft and gentle and dreamy. a good one. it's a part of my teen same-sex relationship collection. i got six for the collection in my Better World Books order. ASH is a fairy tale, and does the conventions of it well. softly, walking, gentle. i liked it, it did not challenge me. next though, i'm going to read this:
I've added a link to the publisher on the side. Blake Butler is one of the editors of HTMLgiant, possibly my favourite blog at the moment. the book is one of the most exquisite looking items i've recieved in a long time. the publishers, fuck, are incredible. it's a part of my attempt to try to push my reading into new places, new writers, new publishers and see what people are doing. i am hungry to read it, but holding off a little because i am so excited by it. the first chapter, i read on the bus, out past belconnen. there was a huge family behind me, and a man who stank sitting near by. bunny was on my lap, struggling in his bag. it was all too much so i put it aside. soon. tonight.
sleep too. and flaxseed oil, and oh fuck, i need to get weetbix. and more books. no. no more books until i have finished the ones i have. saving. saving. uni work. ah. the list of shit i need to get done is drowning me.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
rapture
i am reading it again. oh lordy, oh lordy.
it is spectacular. it is huge and takes me far away, in small words. carol ann duffy, my god, breathless.
the darkness clears a little. heavy depression for last two days, clouding the day until 3 or 4, when i can get up and my joints can move again. it is slow and uncomfortable until then, and sad and dark, but i can move then, in the afternoon, the shade is comfortable and comforting and it is ok again.
i hope tomorrow i can rise up a little better with sunrise and not the afternoon. i have a parcel on my desk at work, and i am sick of sleeping all day in order to survive.
i have a 40% voucher at borders. i have a bad feeling i need to spend this tomorrow as a reward for going to work. self-bribing.
head above water. i feel like i am the last priority, the least important, the most invisible. the most superfluous and meaningless, like slip away, slip away, and ouch, it never hurts less, does it? it always hurts.
it is spectacular. it is huge and takes me far away, in small words. carol ann duffy, my god, breathless.
the darkness clears a little. heavy depression for last two days, clouding the day until 3 or 4, when i can get up and my joints can move again. it is slow and uncomfortable until then, and sad and dark, but i can move then, in the afternoon, the shade is comfortable and comforting and it is ok again.
i hope tomorrow i can rise up a little better with sunrise and not the afternoon. i have a parcel on my desk at work, and i am sick of sleeping all day in order to survive.
i have a 40% voucher at borders. i have a bad feeling i need to spend this tomorrow as a reward for going to work. self-bribing.
head above water. i feel like i am the last priority, the least important, the most invisible. the most superfluous and meaningless, like slip away, slip away, and ouch, it never hurts less, does it? it always hurts.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
treading
this will be fractured.
just finished reading this. thus begins moving to veganism.
just finished reading this. thus begins moving to veganism.it's been something i've been thinking about for awhile. is the benefit i gain from eating meat something i am comfortable with in the context of the harm it causes? it no longer is. and, tying into eating meat is dairy, and eggs, and leather, and other animal products. is the production, and consumption of these items worth the many issues involved? is it too much of a cost for me to forgo them? it no longer is.
fractured.
it's also an excellent book. measured in its approach, non emotive, respectful of all the individuals, from those factory farmers, and those consuming factory farmed goods, to strict vegans. at no time does it feel at though Singer is taking the moral high ground - at no point does it feel as though his mind is made up. it comes across that the ideology behind meat and animal products is being evaluated every step of the way, considered, and kindly so. it is easy to read, it does not hold back in evaluating the problems, but at the same time, does not go for shock value. it allows the reader to come away from the book with a reasoned approach, and a reasoned understanding of the issues.
i want another bookshelf.more.more.more.more.
i ate too soon to do yoga, and now i am exhausted. it's 10 pm, and i have only been awake since 6pm. four hours. too much to be awake. mind is foggy, foggy, too heavy, too heavy. it is lagging behind me, i walk too slow. i need to sleep. if i don't, it drives things underground. sleep heals me.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
fire
i am tired. at the moment, the air conditioning at work is infuriating me - it just doesn't work in my area. small thing, but it's uncomfortably warm, and not good for collection items. so this makes me crankier, and crankier, and more irritated than i would normally be.
and i am irritated on top of that, and sad and hurt and lonely.
so. i am making a list of things i like. making lists is one of the things i like, and it stops me sounding cranky all the time. see, i mainly use blogs to vent, not anything else, well, vent and write about books i've read. it's not representative. there are good things, an infinite number of them in my hands like sand, so i pull some out here, and show them to the light. show and tell.
Yoga. it makes me feel fuller, and more real than anything has in ages. it makes me feel happy and like my feet move more consciously and like my steps make me move.
the fact that Bee is safe.
this curry i made. it was so delicious, my lips are pursed and humming from the heat of it. and it's about a week's worth of food. good work, there.
my conference paper draft i am doing with J.at work. it's going super. we are getting step-by-step closer to having it in a conference, and i am really proud of myself, and j, for making it this far. and yeah, it feels like no one understands how important this it to me, but i called L, and mum, and a. at work, and lark, and i know they'll all be excited for us. and j and i are pleased with each other. this is good. i am working hard on my career.
cutting back my drinking.
my pets. big warm heart.
walking to work every so often, the way the air here smells before ten am, oh lord, it's beautiful. i may hate living here, but there are a lot of beautiful things about this repulsive city and the smell of the air is definitely one of them.
my tummy.
the poster i have on my wall above my bed. it has stars and trees and hands and the trees grow out of the hands.
sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed.
approaching autumn.
distance from past, and the forgetting it brings.
learning more about the area i am in at work, and getting better at my job.
looking (sort of) forward to study. the fact i am trying really hard to be gentle on myself, and remind myself that i can apply myself. i can do well. i can work hard. and i will.
babysitters club femme-slash
buddy, (my sister's cat) being ok.
pictures on my wall.
books. my cave of them. let them fall down on my body.
not sitting back and letting people say shit that bothers me. starting to assert myself and not feel like i need to be trod on anymore. getting something back of myself, again. stop throwing it out, lady. it's valuable.
and i am irritated on top of that, and sad and hurt and lonely.
so. i am making a list of things i like. making lists is one of the things i like, and it stops me sounding cranky all the time. see, i mainly use blogs to vent, not anything else, well, vent and write about books i've read. it's not representative. there are good things, an infinite number of them in my hands like sand, so i pull some out here, and show them to the light. show and tell.
Yoga. it makes me feel fuller, and more real than anything has in ages. it makes me feel happy and like my feet move more consciously and like my steps make me move.
the fact that Bee is safe.
this curry i made. it was so delicious, my lips are pursed and humming from the heat of it. and it's about a week's worth of food. good work, there.
my conference paper draft i am doing with J.at work. it's going super. we are getting step-by-step closer to having it in a conference, and i am really proud of myself, and j, for making it this far. and yeah, it feels like no one understands how important this it to me, but i called L, and mum, and a. at work, and lark, and i know they'll all be excited for us. and j and i are pleased with each other. this is good. i am working hard on my career.
cutting back my drinking.
my pets. big warm heart.
walking to work every so often, the way the air here smells before ten am, oh lord, it's beautiful. i may hate living here, but there are a lot of beautiful things about this repulsive city and the smell of the air is definitely one of them.
my tummy.
the poster i have on my wall above my bed. it has stars and trees and hands and the trees grow out of the hands.
sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed.
approaching autumn.
distance from past, and the forgetting it brings.
learning more about the area i am in at work, and getting better at my job.
looking (sort of) forward to study. the fact i am trying really hard to be gentle on myself, and remind myself that i can apply myself. i can do well. i can work hard. and i will.
babysitters club femme-slash
buddy, (my sister's cat) being ok.
pictures on my wall.
books. my cave of them. let them fall down on my body.
not sitting back and letting people say shit that bothers me. starting to assert myself and not feel like i need to be trod on anymore. getting something back of myself, again. stop throwing it out, lady. it's valuable.
Monday, February 15, 2010
not enough
i read my wonderful beee's journal, and oh god, i smell dry air and sweat and somewhere far away. and god, i long for something to happen. i feel silent here. this place, this way of living, it seems to negate humanity, that rare, raw, beautiful, flesh ripping struggle, and sinks down into ennui. ennui is the perfect, perfect description for this revolting town. in summer, it hovers in the huge blue sky, in the perfect streets with seventies architecture and organised garbage bins. it infuses all of us, from one body sprawled on a couch to another, one set of minds all vacant, moving from one mildly amusing you tube clip to another.
we are hungry, but all we eat is rice. we are rich, so so so rich and yet, we pour out our spare change and look at it, desperate and frustrated after spending every cent on shit we don't want. the big leaves on the lines of maple trees, eurocentric invaders, are still green, and heavy, and everything moves slow. when it rains, people pull faces at the inconvenience. my shoes i bought cheap leaked walking to yoga, and there were little ponds in there, and there was something wonderful about how cold and wrinkly my toes were. but that was about as alive as i felt, cold rain on my calf muscle as the rest of me is under an umbrella and i rush towards the shops, towards the things-i-do-not-need.
i go, shop to shop, pausing over more books more books more more, you don't understand, i need them all i need to consume them i need them like a second skin, because THEY are the only things that make me feel alive, that and fucking, and my pets, and that occasional moment of awareness i get. i tie my hands behind my back, and buy too much food, and plan meals instead, because it stops me buying to ease the ennui. i pause and lightly finger stores, items, the ground, an icecream that will make me feel slightly sick. i walk, my shoes squelching, my skin on my feet folding in.
when i wake up, i feel like my dreams were more real than this automation is. there is no strong pungent odour that makes me feel something real, and there is no drive under my skin making me catch my breath with the beauty of it all. there is just one step after another. it's not calm, or dramatic, or anything at all. it's not a peaceful sort of quietness, it's just that pause before something happens. only, only nothing actually does.
we are hungry, but all we eat is rice. we are rich, so so so rich and yet, we pour out our spare change and look at it, desperate and frustrated after spending every cent on shit we don't want. the big leaves on the lines of maple trees, eurocentric invaders, are still green, and heavy, and everything moves slow. when it rains, people pull faces at the inconvenience. my shoes i bought cheap leaked walking to yoga, and there were little ponds in there, and there was something wonderful about how cold and wrinkly my toes were. but that was about as alive as i felt, cold rain on my calf muscle as the rest of me is under an umbrella and i rush towards the shops, towards the things-i-do-not-need.
i go, shop to shop, pausing over more books more books more more, you don't understand, i need them all i need to consume them i need them like a second skin, because THEY are the only things that make me feel alive, that and fucking, and my pets, and that occasional moment of awareness i get. i tie my hands behind my back, and buy too much food, and plan meals instead, because it stops me buying to ease the ennui. i pause and lightly finger stores, items, the ground, an icecream that will make me feel slightly sick. i walk, my shoes squelching, my skin on my feet folding in.
when i wake up, i feel like my dreams were more real than this automation is. there is no strong pungent odour that makes me feel something real, and there is no drive under my skin making me catch my breath with the beauty of it all. there is just one step after another. it's not calm, or dramatic, or anything at all. it's not a peaceful sort of quietness, it's just that pause before something happens. only, only nothing actually does.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
day
along with what seems to be many people, i dislike valentines day. not with a passion; i am fairly indifferent to it, actually. it just strikes me as stupid, and false, and not a genuine way of one human being expressing to another that they care, for any other reason than it is A Day where this is What We Do. it's not special or lovely, just dull and, well. silly.
last valentines day, i was given a home made card.
a few weeks later, i broke up with him for being a child.
he told me we could make it work, so i tried, but one week later, he changed his mind, broke up with me, started dating someone else that evening, and
a month or so later, they were engaged, and she was pregnant.
ha. so, forgive me if my faith in love is far from devout. he is just a bad taste in my mouth now, a massive, ugly, old mistake i never should have made. but i do not trust Declarations of HUGE Epic Devotion, or of the Passion and Love and Fullness of Adoration. i find them wanting, and as though they hide something else. the more words you need to use to tell me something, the more likely it's not being communicated properly, or you don't really mean it.
i would rather nothing was said than a lie, and i would rather be alone than be with someone just because they felt romance and passion was beautiful, irrespective of the situation, or because they were too scared to be alone.
i can see Creepy Man, (my neighbour) in a pair of shorts and nothing else, sitting on his computer. he keeps leering across the courtyard in my direction and it unsettles me.
morning yoga was brilliant, left me feeling more alive and awake than i did before. finally finding exercise i enjoy has been a long painful process. i am glad i have.
last valentines day, i was given a home made card.
a few weeks later, i broke up with him for being a child.
he told me we could make it work, so i tried, but one week later, he changed his mind, broke up with me, started dating someone else that evening, and
a month or so later, they were engaged, and she was pregnant.
ha. so, forgive me if my faith in love is far from devout. he is just a bad taste in my mouth now, a massive, ugly, old mistake i never should have made. but i do not trust Declarations of HUGE Epic Devotion, or of the Passion and Love and Fullness of Adoration. i find them wanting, and as though they hide something else. the more words you need to use to tell me something, the more likely it's not being communicated properly, or you don't really mean it.
i would rather nothing was said than a lie, and i would rather be alone than be with someone just because they felt romance and passion was beautiful, irrespective of the situation, or because they were too scared to be alone.
i can see Creepy Man, (my neighbour) in a pair of shorts and nothing else, sitting on his computer. he keeps leering across the courtyard in my direction and it unsettles me.
morning yoga was brilliant, left me feeling more alive and awake than i did before. finally finding exercise i enjoy has been a long painful process. i am glad i have.
Friday, February 12, 2010
rocking chair
this is my new chair.
bunny seems to approve of it.
Recent book acquisitions :
I've been meaning to buy a copy ever since i read about it on Jeanette Winterson's website. so far, it is incredibly. utterly, breathtakingly incredible. it makes me wish impossible things, and makes me hungry. it makes me sit in the rain and feel like the tears are not salty. oh oh oh. it is beautiful.
and this one, i just found randomly in a bookstore. series of short stories, (yes, one by Jeanette Winterson... theme much?) for a really amazingly cheap price. collect em all, i say. i love short stories though. they are a beautiful place to play in language, and form, and deliciousness.i'm thinking about trying my hand/fingertips at poetry again some time. it likely won't see the light of day... i feel self concious about whatever i write, poetrywise, and i doubt it'd be of much literarrrrrry worth, whatever i splutter out. i haven't found the voice yet, my voice, any voice. minimal words, sketching shapes with a few lines and letting our hearts fill in the rest? i just don't know, i really don't.
nor am i sure what i am trying to say.
and that is ok.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
long day
with too much movement.
i got home, and went to get out of the car i was driven home in. across the road from my apartment complex, there used to be an emergency centre for animals - it's recently moved across town, but with very little publicity, and without changing the directory online. i saw a couple, one in the car, and the other with something wrapped in a blanket buzzing the door and pacing.
i ran over to them, and called my housemate who could check the new location online for me. a little dog was in the man's arms, wrapped in a gray blanket, his nose poking out, his face wet and his terrier hair sticking up. he was crying, wailing, so high pitched and heartbroken that i wanted to cry with him. it hurt to hear it, to see these tiny little toes poking out of the blanket, hearing him cry. they got in the car, drove off with the address, clearly panicked and heartbroken and distressed beyond belief. their baby, their little one, oh god, oh god.
too much drama, too much pace and fury and temperaments and speed and abject. it is too much, i want to slow down to vegan cupcakes and hair cuts and cuddles and rabbits.
i got home, and went to get out of the car i was driven home in. across the road from my apartment complex, there used to be an emergency centre for animals - it's recently moved across town, but with very little publicity, and without changing the directory online. i saw a couple, one in the car, and the other with something wrapped in a blanket buzzing the door and pacing.
i ran over to them, and called my housemate who could check the new location online for me. a little dog was in the man's arms, wrapped in a gray blanket, his nose poking out, his face wet and his terrier hair sticking up. he was crying, wailing, so high pitched and heartbroken that i wanted to cry with him. it hurt to hear it, to see these tiny little toes poking out of the blanket, hearing him cry. they got in the car, drove off with the address, clearly panicked and heartbroken and distressed beyond belief. their baby, their little one, oh god, oh god.
too much drama, too much pace and fury and temperaments and speed and abject. it is too much, i want to slow down to vegan cupcakes and hair cuts and cuddles and rabbits.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
expectations
there are times when you know things may, no, likely will happen. and then they do, and you understand then that you could not actually be prepared for how you feel.
one of the people who i consider a soul - mate - a friend who has changed my life and saved my life in more ways than i can count - had a very close call. vague vague, yes yes, because her battle is not for the little-ness of my blog, my tiny sand pit where i put words into buckets and prop them up until they fall... she is much greater and bigger than that.
but she is breathtaking. she is strong, and wise, and i would die for her. she is brave, and incredible, and full of life and fire and energy, and if a single person tries to hurt what she is doing, i'll stop at nothing to bring that down as fast as i can, with peace, yes, but i will.
i first saw her outside a cafe. it was under a year ago, oh yes. she was tiny, this beautiful tiny punk angel with a skateboard and a beautiful shy grin, and a wild mane of black hair and with studs in her cheeks - cigarette from her fingers. she loved the bunnies straight away. she walked into my sloppy, disorganised house, and just took to it, and was excited by my nest of a room, its strange smells, my own eccentricities and the fact i am a pain in the arse to live with. she took all this, all the dullness and the confusion i was feeling, the blank walls and my blank and cold and heaving sobbing lonely heart (i'd just had the worst break up i've experienced) and made everything beautiful again.
i spoke to her today for the first time since she went away. hearing her voice again made me almost cry. i cannot say how much i love this girl, how wonderful and magical she is. and she's safe for now, and i will fight for her in my tiny tiny snuffle nosed bunny, far away city sort of way, however i can. because she is Something Else. she touches things and makes them magical. this city is colder and uglier without her, in more ways than i can say. this country is.
when someone you love like that is in danger, it changes everything. your body seizes up, muscles under your skull frozen into place. your fingers cannot move right. your heart cannot move right. NOTHING moves right. because you want to run to them and save them, faster than light, but there's nothing you can really do. and you realise this just collapses over and over itself for so many people all around the world.
she loved autumn, and owls, and soy milk poured over blueberries. she is a vegan, with the most amazing hair on earth, and adorable denim skirts with leopard print and cheetah patches. she is compassionate and fiery and intelligent and sharp, SO sharp, but the kindest, most gentle soul on earth. we watched the bunnies in the apartment, drinking goon from the bag, saying 'hoppity hoppity hop!' and photocopying random items in the apartment on the printer.
love.
one of the people who i consider a soul - mate - a friend who has changed my life and saved my life in more ways than i can count - had a very close call. vague vague, yes yes, because her battle is not for the little-ness of my blog, my tiny sand pit where i put words into buckets and prop them up until they fall... she is much greater and bigger than that.
but she is breathtaking. she is strong, and wise, and i would die for her. she is brave, and incredible, and full of life and fire and energy, and if a single person tries to hurt what she is doing, i'll stop at nothing to bring that down as fast as i can, with peace, yes, but i will.
i first saw her outside a cafe. it was under a year ago, oh yes. she was tiny, this beautiful tiny punk angel with a skateboard and a beautiful shy grin, and a wild mane of black hair and with studs in her cheeks - cigarette from her fingers. she loved the bunnies straight away. she walked into my sloppy, disorganised house, and just took to it, and was excited by my nest of a room, its strange smells, my own eccentricities and the fact i am a pain in the arse to live with. she took all this, all the dullness and the confusion i was feeling, the blank walls and my blank and cold and heaving sobbing lonely heart (i'd just had the worst break up i've experienced) and made everything beautiful again.
i spoke to her today for the first time since she went away. hearing her voice again made me almost cry. i cannot say how much i love this girl, how wonderful and magical she is. and she's safe for now, and i will fight for her in my tiny tiny snuffle nosed bunny, far away city sort of way, however i can. because she is Something Else. she touches things and makes them magical. this city is colder and uglier without her, in more ways than i can say. this country is.
when someone you love like that is in danger, it changes everything. your body seizes up, muscles under your skull frozen into place. your fingers cannot move right. your heart cannot move right. NOTHING moves right. because you want to run to them and save them, faster than light, but there's nothing you can really do. and you realise this just collapses over and over itself for so many people all around the world.
she loved autumn, and owls, and soy milk poured over blueberries. she is a vegan, with the most amazing hair on earth, and adorable denim skirts with leopard print and cheetah patches. she is compassionate and fiery and intelligent and sharp, SO sharp, but the kindest, most gentle soul on earth. we watched the bunnies in the apartment, drinking goon from the bag, saying 'hoppity hoppity hop!' and photocopying random items in the apartment on the printer.
love.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
shiver
a teen novel that i enjoyed, but loathed the end of.
Shiver
was going fine, slow and lazy and not too much to worry about, only the cold and days getting shorter, until a stupid conflict got shoved in the end. it sped it up far too much, and made me feel uncomfortable. a shame, the book was otherwise wonderful.
i'm now trawling my blogs for interesting sounding new fiction, and trying to collect old stuff that's decent and i've somehow missed. i feel i should read some Richard Yeats, just because Tao Lin's named his new book after him. i also want to read The Old Man and The Sea
because, not only is it something i am Supposed To Read, it actually sounds interesting.
i had Yoga today. i am surprised how wonderful i feel after it. i think this is going to be very, very good for me - the monkey mind is stiller, slower, better.
operation Being A More Constructive Human is going ok. less drinking, tick. exercise, tick. cooked dinner, packed lunches, tick. and a decent enough amount of groceries for this week too. once spending is controlled better, things will be swimming.
Shiver
was going fine, slow and lazy and not too much to worry about, only the cold and days getting shorter, until a stupid conflict got shoved in the end. it sped it up far too much, and made me feel uncomfortable. a shame, the book was otherwise wonderful.
i'm now trawling my blogs for interesting sounding new fiction, and trying to collect old stuff that's decent and i've somehow missed. i feel i should read some Richard Yeats, just because Tao Lin's named his new book after him. i also want to read The Old Man and The Sea
because, not only is it something i am Supposed To Read, it actually sounds interesting.
i had Yoga today. i am surprised how wonderful i feel after it. i think this is going to be very, very good for me - the monkey mind is stiller, slower, better.
operation Being A More Constructive Human is going ok. less drinking, tick. exercise, tick. cooked dinner, packed lunches, tick. and a decent enough amount of groceries for this week too. once spending is controlled better, things will be swimming.
Friday, February 5, 2010
purple
hair dye afternoon itchy fingers. my lizards are eating. they are happy with this, tasty crumbs on their little faces, running their faces inside a plastic dish for more. emma gave the rats a fig. she is visiting from sydney and i adore her, bright orange hair like a brilliant gorgeous pumpkin.
i miss my b. she's far away, faraway secret pathways, off, off saving the world, and she saved mine, you know, when i found her on facebook. i miss her each day. me and the boy posted a photo of the Palestine tent at the multicultural festival today. the boy didn't buy lemonade from the israaeli tent. it's our way of protesting. ha.
i feel sensible today, clear headed and real again. i need hard carnality to function. it's like hunger, or exhaustion for me - when i don't have intense physical intimacy, a part of me erodes and i start to go cardboard box inside out, fill me, fill me, FILL ME, until each cell in my body is screaming hollering begging pleading fighting tearing to be fucked. and then i am, and the storm is over the air smells fresh and i breathe again.
i've got a swag of books on order. i want more. another Tao Lin, 'scorched atlas' 'The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis (Little House on the Bowery)' a stack of stuff for uni... now i am hungry for more more more to stretch my reading out like a hungry ghost....
Thursday, February 4, 2010
the baby sitters club
i used to write poems about the baby-sitters club.
i want to photoshop bauldrillard's face onto the cover of 'boy crazy stacey'. i like the idea of Toby the cute lifeguard, being bauldrillard's alter-ego.
i wished i could have been claudia, the hot artist, japanese-american one. but at heart, i think i was just mary-anne, the nerd who cried a lot. i think she's bisexual. i have nothing, however, to base this on.
long week. skin crawling. my kitchen smells so bad that is has become kind of interesting, and i don't want to clean it.
there is only one thing on my mind and it is driving everything else out.
i want to photoshop bauldrillard's face onto the cover of 'boy crazy stacey'. i like the idea of Toby the cute lifeguard, being bauldrillard's alter-ego.
i wished i could have been claudia, the hot artist, japanese-american one. but at heart, i think i was just mary-anne, the nerd who cried a lot. i think she's bisexual. i have nothing, however, to base this on.
long week. skin crawling. my kitchen smells so bad that is has become kind of interesting, and i don't want to clean it.
there is only one thing on my mind and it is driving everything else out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)