and one for the end of year

not sure if it is the best image of me out there, but it is a beautiful photograph.

this year, this godforsaken year is over. almost. counting down. under 12 hours. it's relatively empty symbolism, we are just marking time off, it doesn't MEAN things, it doesn't MEAN life will change. but i feel it, moving on.

i can. and it didn't.

being

being with some people is like pushing two ripe pieces of fruit together. the skin bruises across the points of contact. the flesh opens, splits. the juice runs out, and you lick it off your fingers and you taste it.

i am wearing a shirt with little tiny bunnies on it. they are upside down and i can see them clearly like that.

one day, i want to have a child. and i think that's ok. that day, however, is not today. that place is not here. it is in no way aligned with the life i am living, the place that i am, the person that i am. i am ok with this.

christmas usually makes me deeply sad. there is something about it that hovers over me, ominous and dark and ugly and i wait for it to pass. this year, it moved quietly over me, and now, it's another year until the next. this makes me happy.

i am staring down the barrel of the end of this year. i cannot articulate how happy this makes me, that this year is almost done; that i survived it, that i made my way out the other end, that i am still human, all too human, that the carnage is relative to the growth, that i have learned from my mistakes (a bit, i guess). the solidity of my thoughts, my self, my being, and my ... understanding? has grown. it's a long way from wise, but i feel that it's progress. and this year, over, moves me that little bit further away from the tentacles that wrapped around me.

bob dylan and sex

i just finished 'affection' by krissy kneen. sometimes books are very close, and it is hard to write clearly about what you think. it is hard to understand how close it stands to you.

it is brisbane, and sex and the humidity, the streets and the darkness, the bridge and the river, the footsteps.

it has the madness and softness, and god. it's too close for me to articulate it clearly right now. it makes me want to whip a part of myself out and become alive again. it makes me want to reflect across my own life, my own sex, my own intimacies, and the meaning spun between them. it might only add up to 25 years, but there's enough there. there is enough.

i'm whipping myself around it, right now. 'like a rolling stone' - this song is j. b. and i, before b. went to palistine, while j was here, fleetingly, and we listened to it, and we drank, cloudy cigarette tinged apartment, the laziness and the tepid boredom of canberra there, floating with the smoke.

softly.

bunnies

we had a picnic with bunnies in the park, soft gray and velvet black, expansive green around, rolling in the fields, breathing.

today is a hard one.

today is a slow one. a twitchy, trickling darkness of full, ugly regrets and something i'm unable to put into words.

not even regret. it's a dislocation i have. it is a misplaced piece of a puzzle that i couldn't ever finish.

let's all forget it ever happened now, sweetness. i'll lie here, warm and safe in the collapsing tower of books, falling around me, rough under my back, and we'll pretend it away, we'll touch each other until we forget, and my skin sinks out of memory and into you. take me there. take me there.

the sea

now, it is Iris Murdoch time. 'the sea, the sea'. there have been very few booker prize winner's works i've enjoyed, to be honest. so i am very curious to see how i feel about this. it's started well. so far. there's something i'm not sure of... a roughness, a speed to it, the pace, that i'm still getting used to - it is jittery in a way i don't know if i like.

also got a copy of an awesome anthology 'revolting librarians' - have also ordered copy of 'revolting librarians redux.' i've developed something of an obsession with subject headings.... there's a paper in that's around the corner.

i'm working through two main work related areas of interest - LC subject headings, and cataloging in general, and the 'aftermath' for people working with deeply disturbing material. mulling them over a lot, and i think something will grow out of both of these.

see, i don't catalogue. i'm in reference, or special collections, or... i've been in a few areas, really. work wise, my skills are broader, but i do have good attention to detail... but my better skill is in project work - i excel there. it's definitely my strength; strategy, application of strategy... my 'professional' networking needs some work - my 'professional persona' in general is still unpolished - i am too immature, too reckless, have taken personal risks reflecting back into my professional life that i deeply regret. i get distracted easily, bored easily. but i am stubborn. if i decide i want to do a good job on something, i'll not rest until i have.

but subject headings. that's less of a professional interest, and more of a research issue i hold. and i know, it's huge. the revision and application of 'proper' subject headings to a collection of over three million, Three Million titles, is not feasible. but. but. hm. ponder.

i have, i think anyway, sunstroke. i got severely burnt on my back, while sitting in the shade. it hurts. a lot. it didn't at first, i didn't notice until i turned and saw a shoulder, glowing red, and then my back, an even deeper shade... on arriving home, i found myself woozy, and slow. and hot. and then... the pain. it's painful, digging, bloody. not nice.

oblivion

“I HEAR YOU BUT I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU”

Father, where’s my gun
Now that the war has begun
Let me go it alone
I need no one
I said I need no one

But oh god now here it comes
And it’s too dark to aim this gun
And now faster, faster, faster
Once again I’m on the run
And I hear you say

“O’ my stubborn son
I know that you said
You need no one
But don’t you see
Danger, danger, danger
Headed to oblivion…”

I followed the hunt
Far as I could…
Through desert weathers
Petrified wood
And I took one shot
In the dark
Back fired the bullet
Silver to heart

And oh god now here it comes
And it’s too dark to aim this gun
And now faster, faster, faster
Once again I’m on the run
And I hear you say

“O’ my stubborn son
I know that you said
You need no one
But don’t you see
Danger, danger, danger
Headed to oblivion…”

“WAIT A SECOND….

HAVE YOU COME SO FAR

FOR IT TO END LIKE THIS?

THIS IS THE CHALLENGE

I DARE YOU

TO TAKE A HOLD OF THAT

DARKNESS

FROM DEEP DOWN IN YOU

GET BACK UP

WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF”

Ok.
Show your face to me
Show your face to me
Be you my friend or enemy
Show your face
Face to me

I do not fear oblivion

Father… where’s my gun?
pwolf <3

stone diaries

carol shields is one of the most tragically underrated writers of the last 50 years. she brings out, micro-incident at a time, the profound, epic heaviness of the average life - the monumental nature of simply being.

her characters don't live lives of epic monsterous proportions. they simply live. their dramas are human, and no less dramatic or lacking in complexity for their humility. their lives are not peaceful or perfect, the families and relationships are all so ... so fleshy and alive, and real. Real. she writes from a heart of reality better than any other writer i can think of.

the stone diaries traces through a woman's life. she is born. she marries. her first husband passes away on their honeymoon. she remarries in her thirties, and has three children. she grows old, as do the children. and she eventually passes away. she has a period of deep depression after losing a job. her close friends pass away before her, but she forms more friendships later in life. she loves her husband; she mourns his death, but celebrates his life. it does not break her. she is strong. her mother died when she was born. her father is a wonderful character streaming through.

there is rock. they are all stone. we are all stone.

it is amazing, and i will carry little pieces of the stone with me for a long time. the gentle, beautiful heaviness of Shield's words will not leave me for some time.

goals

sometimes articulating direction helps me. i realise there are things i do, and things i don't, that i should. I won't set these as definates. but goals, suggestions, hopes.

1. read more. novels. poetry. nonfiction. i feel more solid with a book in the background. even just a few pages. even just at lunch. read. read.

2. write more. be it blog, or quietly, or work related librarythings, or shitty poetry, or rambles, or letters to friends, whatever. words. words. make them. make it. solidify.

3. Yoga. take classes, try and find someone willing to do them with me.

4. meditation on sundays. i feel soulless right now.

5. more music.

6. more time with animals.

7. stop watching any television.

8. dramatically reduce internet time. it is for communication. not this bland zoning out i do on it.

9. see more movies in the cinema.

10. continue therapy. keep fighting. keep. fucking. fighting. do not give in.

11. work on friendships and relationships. be a better friend ; listen more ; be kinder ; more giving of time, of self ; fear not.

12. address health issues much more seriously. start investigating what i can do to stay awake a more reasonable number of hours.

13. food. eat better. Much better. MUCH MUCH better. take lunch to work. two coffee maximum.

14. gentle and kind. gentle and kind. gentle and kind.

15. seize myself as a sexual creature, and stop feeling ashamed of that. if i want to be sexy with a lover, stop being so scared. trust. and if that trust is betrayed, realise that the learning was worth the hurt - and the loss is thus the gain.

16. dream more. peace. softness.

17. podcasts to sleep with. open open. open.

18. save money. responsibility.


this is a time i need to build. build. this is the feeling. it's not a time to make, or create, or grow, but build on what is there, and make that stronger. foundations for growth. i'll have a much clearer list of this, i'll work on that. more details on what to read, more details on how to reduce internet time, to eat better, to save money.... little steps. kind to self. i can get there. i will.

space

the thing that defines me to you, you little wonderland, is the spaces. it is the things unsaid, undone, not felt, not able to happen, and what is not.

that makes it no less wonderful, and you no less wise.

......


i just watched 'where the wild things are' - it strikes me as the sort of movie which everyone takes something significantly different away from it with them.

visually, it is beautiful. the acting is just wonderful - the costumes, the sets, the movement, the light - they capture the darkness and the thrills and the complexity of childhood incredibly. childhood is not some halcyon of joy and innocence - it is full of things you do not understand, things you cannot control, the possibility of loss and horror, and all you understand is what you need. and when you are lonely and sad? it is miserable.

children can be depressed, just as they can be angry and scared and alone or joyous and excited. just because they are newer to the world does not make their experience of it any less valid.

for me, it was incredibly moving. it was an amazing illustration of the terror and sadness and often the darkness of childhood. that lack of control, that lack of context, that lack of understanding all these horrible tiny things - that inability to be heard, that feeling that everyone else is too busy, too occupied - and that you are naughty and wrong, and you don't know how to make it better. children can be terrors. they cannot communicate with words, so they wreck things. it is the anger of some sort of horrid, scary impotence.

it also flickered at how hard it always is. even when we kind of start to understand what other people want, and we get a better perspective, it's still scary. it's still Really hard to get along with other people, or help other people.

it is difficult to be selfless and kind, to be soft and not hard, to trust, to let people in, to let go. it is amazingly difficult. it is so hard to hear what other people say sometimes.

it wasn't hopeful, it didn't tell the audience that things get better or easier, or that there is any solution - just that if you love people, and if you listen to people, you might get there. it helps. it doesn't make it perfect, and sometimes, it doesn't make it ok. it doesn't stop the world being terrifying. but if you are honest, and open, and take risks, and let the people who love you in, then things are a bit better. then, you are not alone.

right now? i feel really alone. i feel like someone i care about is not able to let me any closer in, and i feel selfish for trying, because until other things are sorted out, there's nothing i can do, or ask of them, or... yeah. it hurts.

here and back again

humidity is most noticed between fingers, i think, in swollen hands, in the way clothing peels off like rough sticky oranges...

wine, wine, beer, dripping slowly, heat off the road. even when it's not hot, the damp is thick. little pieces of the few days slip out as they pass, squeezed out from the heat and the damp.

there was the gallery, and there were glass beads coating a taxidermy deer, solid dew.

i don't have a christmas tree, and i am not waiting for jesu, small whelping infant, moving fingers, small tiny fingers, grasping.

but i remember back, and i part the fog of the last year, and i go into my gut under sinew and confusing moments. i saw an old friend in brisbane, and she is 8 months pregnant, a small separate human being inside of her, pushing at her skin, and god, i remember that one realization that one day, i want that too. not just that though, the connected fibers. the co-parent, the partner. the stability, the house. the place that is home. the person that is yours. these things? i want them. and i should not feel compromised for wanting them, as though i should wish for something less fleshy and basic.

and then, i hear stories of people who regret it. they say it whisperingly, so deeply ashamed of it, but they want to wish away their children. what if i am misguided, and mislead by this biological fluctuation? what am i looking for really, other than home, and someone to be alone with, and at home with?

i want that, and i have no idea where to look.

there might be something mismade about me that causes this to keep slipping away. the closer i get, the further it moves away.

drifting

i have slept all day again. this time, due to stomach cramps so severe this morning that i passed out on the floor a few times. i thought better than to go to work.

i had uncomfortably vivid dreams all day, maybe it was the heat, maybe not.

one thing i am finding with my poetry reading, is that the more i re-read the poems, the more time i spend with them, the greater the intimacy and understanding and feeling with them becomes. it's more like listening to music than reading a novel.

Desire

Nor
desire
but together
a flower
desire
I was happy

Sappho

i like to re-read them so i can see them better, feel them better, know them better.

it is very different to narrative.



in other news - i desperately want to reorganise my bookselves. only i don't have the space to move things like i want to. this is problematic. problematic indeed.

pleasure

On a soft pillow
I will lay down my limbs

Sappho

i am having a crisis of faith, which is hard when you believe in very few things.

it is not a crisis i can verbalise, or pin down. because maybe you cannot let something in when it won't stop moving.

i am tired, and i want to lie down for a long, long time, until moss grows and bones soften. and then, i will wake up. and then, i will feel alive again.

my voice will catch in the back of my throat when i finally go to sit up and then, and then, i will lay down my limbs, and they will soften.

my vision is soft around the edges at the moment. things are starting to ghost up and coil in on themselves; our skin flaking off like bark each day, scales from our skin cells, dusty snow. and things turn around, and live come out of it, and meaning comes out of nothing, and we see something, sometimes, that makes it worthwhile. and it is close enough to grasp, almost, but too far away to hold. just that tiny inch too far away to hold properly.



i get a nasty itch sometimes for something... something tangible to consume me and take me away. some sort of visceral madness to overcome the flesh, and run away with me. life with this cinematic glow from moment to moment, glistening, jittering, present. sometimes, some things, some places, and it clicks into place. and then i move slightly, and it all slips away, and the cards slip out of my hand onto the floor and i let go, and i drop them, they fall face down, card after card, and i just don't know if this is the last time i will pick them up now.

the streets are so clean here. the trees are articulate in a way, down the streets, soviet. and they don't take me away. they don't drag me down, bury me alive, and make me forget how to remember how to forget.

visual

seroquel nights

disintegration

Time running beneath the pillow wakes
Lovers entrained who in the name of love
Were promised the steeples and fanlights of a dream;
Joins the renters of each single room
Across the table to observe a life
Dissolving in the acid of their sex;

Time that scatters hair upon a head
Spreads the ice sheet on the shaven lawn;
Signing an annual permit for the frost
Ploughs the stubble in the land at last
To introduce the unknown to the known
And only by politeness make them breed;

Time over the roofs of what has hearly been
Circling, a migratory, static bird,
Predicts no change in future's lancing shape,
And daylight shows the streets still tangled up;
Time points the simian camera in the head
Upon confusion to be seen and seen.


philip larkin




------------------------------

music night dark sleepless or sleepy i am not sure. nil by mouth, stinging sharpness in finger tips you remind me of slipping, and depth and sharp movements oh how i forget you. am i hungry? i've forgotten again.

pages.

wind. not agressive wind, but that quiet movement.

one kilo of cherries from the markets. snacks for a week or so.

i don't want to be here right now. and call it weak or whatever you want, but if i can wipe the next 10 or so hours out of my mind with legally prescribed drugs, then well, those hours are going.

and what are the use of these little words? i feel like i'm slipping back again, slipping away, further back, further back again, and you don't think i'm pretty do you? i guess, i guess my face is strangely shaped, and if you don't like clever, there's not much left.

i don't like feeling like this. i don't like knowing why i feel like this. i don't like having to do what i need to, to stop feeling like this.

oh larkin.

lower back.

i think the bunnies are fighting

i can hear them ... disgruntled little rabbit is standing at attention next to big rabbit's house. there are irritated sounds coming from their direction.

for once, it seems likely to be the little one's fault. fussy little bugger, should leave big rabbit alone!

i am tired. deeply, achingly tired.



the coast.
sometimes, in Past Times, weekends are almost monumental. those times where life, and movement, it becomes so strong and dramatic that each scene forms against the next, cinematic, hyperreal.

there was a softness at the coast though. at moments, it was like the lens was twisted slightly and it focused, like lying on the beach at night, music blaring, toxins flowing in bloodlines between us, snow angels in sand, the moon clouds chance touches arms around me oh yes, people moving shadily sitting in circle quiet now, music music, smell the beach the sand, that grit, bury your fingers deep in the sand, that's all you can feel that softness. breathe.


then focus out again.

i slept mostly. more hours than i was awake.

i read some larkin. i like him more than auden, or coleridge, who i took along as well. coleridge is turgid.


today, i got a camera. this is celebrating being an officially qualified librarian. my sentences are slowing down underhand, and i am moving towards... away from. ayh. sleep.

coastal

to the beach, good folk. i am going on holiday by accident, in a house of people, room to room, too much booze is likely - i am taking books. tempted to remove some software from the Boy's iPhone to keep him of the interwebs for a few days. but i like him, so i won't.

sand, and little rock pools, salty water and that itchy under-the-skin feeling from the ocean. sleeping somewhere different, with people i don't know well, sand walk dark beach times, rolling over and over.

poetry. auden, larkin, borges, sexton, sappho - am taking them with me for the holiday.

quiet and distance from this repulsive town.



these are the things that Kill Me....

i am taking monday off work. monday will be a break in something for me, and i am glad that i won't be here. and i'll be celebrating on tuesday. it's the little things, the ones we are waiting for, that are not quite victories, but spaces, and places where we can again feel free again.

waiting

i get tired of this waiting feeling i have right now. it's an edginess, as though i am... waiting for something silent, something big? something small? something new? something repetitive? i can't put my finger on it.

am i waiting to feel acknowledged, or real, or visible, or desired? to be wanted and taken and consumed and hand over hand falling until i forget my name, forget how to breathe, there is nothing oh god, nothing just this tunnel, this place, this small space created between me and you .... ? that sort of rush feeling that now, i feel is probably the last thing i need ever again?

because i am waiting.

checking my phone, anticipation. i cook dinner eagerly wanting this to come. is this... thing... going to validate my existence somehow? if you reach out and touch me and i feel like you feel me and i feel you and there is some sort of sublime dreamy overarching transfiguration through that eee f l reorganized, will i be there? or you here? is there anybody there? i can't articulate it, i can't find it. i can't name it.

Alone

[168b]

The moon has set and
the Pleiades. Middle
of the night, time spins
away and i lie alone.

[130]

Eros loosener of limbs once again trembles me,
a sweetbitter beast irrepressibly creeping in.

..............

the detritus of her body of work, these little quiet fragments break through more than entire bodies of works do, than entire lives. sappho, to take your words, 'you burn us'
it has fallen, it is just in pieces, and oh God, the spaces, the spaces. i adore spaces, i adore the spaciousness of her works. i adore the lost, the fragmented, the disintegration, the crumbles, the taste in the back of our mouths that is all that is left of her.

Female Poets Reading-time!

ok. i'm starting on a list of different female poets to look at, and trying to work out what sort of form a 'group' of people discussing them could take. i tend to think a communal blog might go well, but that's my own bias towards blogs as an internet mechanism of communication.

so far we have:

sappho
christina rosetti
emily dickenson
patti smith
sylvia plath
judith wright
annie sprinkle
gabrielle everall
kimberley mann
anne sexton
carol anne duffy
adrienne rich
alice oswald
penelope shuttle
zoë skoulding
marianne moore

honestly, i'm shit at organising 'stuff' - pretty much anything. it's hard enough to organise Waking Up, Getting To Work, Feeding Self, Feeding Animals, Money, and other adult things that should be a lot easier than they seem to me.

pondering what sort of form ... all read same writer at the same time? just reflect on whatever one you choose, and then others write about it as well? i tend to like that, so other people can respond if it interests them, or not... ghgmmmm... Nutting Stuff Out.

ETA - The Guardian never fails to be Amazing. here's a link to their Excellent Poem of the Week blog - Poem Of the Week

skinks, heat, mountain-tops and comics

the skinks are cranky. specifically, splodgy the blue tongue, who everyone else insists on calling 'stinky' because, well... he smells a bit, is pacing his house moodily, ramming his little head under twigs, putting his little paws up against the glass. i want to let him crawl around outside the house, only he's being sprayed for mites and ticks today, and i need to keep them in confinement. no water either. fortunately, they are desert animals, and it's not going to hurt them.

the Lizard People have given excellent advice - Dr Cuddle's lack of teeth might not be animal cruelty, but just the remainder of a disease, or something... he had a big meal of Crumbly Lizard Feed, and loved it. i think splodgy has settled. the bunnies had cherries today, which delighted them, and i gave one to audrey rat, and she grabbed it so excitedly with her itty bitty hands and devoured it.

today, two new books - the first volume of 'love and rockets' - 'maggie the mechanic' -- and the first mouse guard comic bind-up - 'mouse guard autumn'. i had ordered 'mouse guard autumn' online, and the order got cancelled, which was disappointing. but i am going to move between these two and poetry while my focus is still wavering a little.

any suggestions of female poets to read are encouraged - my preference is 20th century at the moment.

Now, to CURRY. i am not a very excellent cook, but i do like making curry, and making it simmer for ages to make it strong an' tasty and delicious. so i goin' to cook that and leave it, and have a delicious fruit salad too. and make cous-cous to take for lunch this week.

hot day, tired animals

today has been too hot. i've slept most of the last 24 hours. woke up at six for dinner - it's closing in on 10.30, and i am exhausted.

the house is quiet, filled with sleeping critters. both bunnies are sprawled lazily in their houses, warm and cranky. the rats oscillate between picking fights with each other, and sulkily curling up around their condo. the skinks snooze in their house, and wandered around outside, in the apartment, lackluster and belligerent as skinks often are. Kali the dragon sleeps on N's lap, little arms relaxed and a tired frustrated expression crossing his face.

the heat does no one well here.

every so often, a piece of newspaper shifts in someone's house. (that's my preference to cage. all the beasties, after small runs around, attempt to get back to their houses, because it is their territory, and they like it there.) the rats shift around, bunny moves a leg, and the skinks dig deeper into their newspaper. a rat sneezes. the shingleback sneezes too. we are suspecting that he might have a slightly abused past and it worries us - he needs a vet trip.

my mind is hazy, like the feeling after rain on a hot humid brisbane day. it is lazy and cannot hold ideas together very well. sleep suits me today, because it keeps me safe. it is groggy and lazy and smells like sweat, like sleeping all day and folding over and over.

i am starting on the introduction to my complete works of Sappho. i find it interesting that the work that is read, and loved, and respected, on the basis of what has been left behind. it's a similar thing to what interests me, working with manuscripts. it is an art of piecing together the fragments. it differs so much from oral histories, which are offered and are open verbal interactions. manuscripts are collected fragments of what is left of someone's life, the slipped through the cracks, the physical spaces and creations and movements, all added on top of each other. when i've worked with people's reciepts, or old old diaries, or gently, passionatly complied scrap books of photographs of planes, i wonder what they'd think of someone like me reading through them, moved by their attention and their passions, their sheer will to communicate and how this stays behind.

it's what i like about libraries.

sleep deprived thoughts

there are some friends that i miss so much, i actually can't keep in close contact with them. it hurts too much to be so far from them.

i ranted a bit, and deleted.

but i am hurting a bit right now, and i need to find words in a safe way that doesn't overflow like i used to. words are powerful, and when the words you are given are sharp and hard and painful, it digs in to every vulnerability, and you are left feeling like nothing. so thus, i am left using words to rebuild again. rebuild again. am i unable to find a single supportive person anymore? is the only thing i am able to do now is find people who make me feel less and less worthy? i need to stop this.

i am reading sappho. it's a part of my project - female poetry. slow collecting, slow movement through it. sappho is a good place to start.

sore tired attempt at blog post

i was going to write a reflection on the Forgotten Australia's apology, but i felt too ... mentally exhausted by working so closely with it to say anything substantial.

i was going to ponder the question/rant someone posted at me about the fact i do pole dancing fitness classes - they accused me of supporting female subjugation due to a fitness class, and i get irrationally furious when men tell me how to enact my feminism. but, i don't have much of substance to say, other than to raise the question of how this is different from other forms of dance, and if it matters?

i was going to write about the book i just finished reading - "the year of living biblically' by A.J. Jacobs - let's see -

i really enjoyed it. i like his writing style; it is easy, it flows well, it is personal without being forced, and intimate without that detracting from what he is investigating. his analysis of his own behaviour is interesting, and honest, and the interludes to his family life are actually quite touching. and i enjoy it as a way of looking, and really, honestly investigating the bible's content in such a deeply intimate way - enacting the rules with your own body, your own life. it is a daring thing to do, and i think he writes about it in a way that honestly communicates both the problems of fundimentalism, and the many, many variations of it, through his discussions with adherents to the faiths.

Jacobs also approaches all of the people with an openness i found refreshing. it's so easy to laugh at these seemingly absurd beliefs; but rather, he doesn't aim to make fun of them, but to try and understand what they are doing, what they believe and why they do. the scope, and the lightness of the tone of the book didn't allow for a thorough investigation of this - but this was not his purpose, and nor was there the space to do it.

not everything sat comfortably with me - i think there were two points where i stopped and went 'huh? i don't know about this...' - both towards the end. but i like that. i like that i was not sure how i felt about it. and it's not likely to be something i need to mull over - these are not issues i need to deal with. but any book that allows me to approach religion critically, compassionately, and gently humorously is something i respect.

************

today, my complete works of anne sexton arrived. i need to add Carol Anne Duffy to my 'list of female poets to read'. anne first. i am excited.

************

i got two new pets. a splotched blue tongue lizard, and a shingleback. the blue tongue 'musks' a lot - ie, puts out a 'sexy' smell for Da Ladies. the shingleback nuzzles you with his little face. they are both adorable little muffins.


this is the shingleback. the name is Dr Cuddles - N and i suspect he is a she, so Dr will suffice as a title.

the bunnies seem indifferent to the lizardly additions.

Poetry an' stuff

i often wonder about gender and writing. i look through my own collection of books, and notice that so many of the writers i hold most dear are male. i wonder if this is some sort of internalised mysogny i am not entirely aware of.

article: "do women write female poetry?

list: ruth padel's top 10 female poets

at the moment, i'm starting to collect more 20th century woman poets. anne sexton, adrienne rich, alice oswald ... it's a journey. a past lover introduced me to larkin, and i fell in love with him. and now, this world, this connected passion for words and how together they move in and out of each other is taking me back.



list : top ten books on shelley

i've had a passion for the romantics since my mid teens - shelley was the first. i have to stutteringly confess that this interest came out of reading an article online about the gothic subculture, and linking 'goffics' to a love of the romantics. so i was curious, and raided the shelves at my fundimentalist christian school library. there was a copy of 'the collected works of percy bysshe shelley,' thin plastic cover over the red binding. paperback, flimsy. i consumed devoured explored implored shelley to show me his magic, and it unfolded around me, little me, never really... getting... poetry before this point. i progressed into byron, down into ee cummings (drawn first for his dislike of capitals and use of puntuation...)

but, but. the poets have been mostly male. my favourite writers - kawabata, murakami, winterson, atwood, yes, roughly even. but female poets, i've never really taken to.

so now, i will. i'm working on it. i feel... i feel sad sometimes that all this, these interests of mine, i feel like i step into them alone. i like sharing intellectual discoveries, writers, poets, artists, creativity, i like seeing it grow out and over and into and out of me, and others, i like that give and take which comes when you give a writer to someone else - and right now, i feel as though i have no one who gives a fig for the stuff i read and enjoy. so, the solitary journey? it's not without its charms, and i think, it too will give back a lot to me.

Good News Day Today

Today, i am very pleased.

the mary river, in queensland, has been saved, after the utterly revoltingly stupid and animal-endangering dam has been stopped:

News Story On Traveston Dam Rejection

gay civil unions have just been legalised in the a.c.t - i will be happier when civil unions are an option for all people, so that people have an option for a commitment to another person which is free of the ugliness of marriage:

News Story on Gay Marriage

and now, i will pretend that i'll arrive home and find Exciting Books on my doorstep. even though i order them to work. right now, i am about to learn about Anne Sexton. she seems interesting. and i got another Kawabata and Winterson in the mail recently.... delicious times. and i have a copy of a comic named 'mouseguard autumn' also on the way - it has bunnies in it.

Tardis + new blog

this one is more Craft Oriented though. i'm going to resist the urge to do Ranties here, as much as it's a habit drawn out from years of blogging.... it's a proper ye oldeeee craft blog, with me knitting, my spinning wheel named pip, me crochet, and me pets.

i have a menagerie in my house, of 9 animals.

i live in a cold city in a warm country.

i live with my cousin, N, who is super-awesome. i have best friends all around the world, from B. in palestine, to L. & J in brisbane, and F and V in my own city.

right now, i am crocheting a tardis. it's pretty awesome : here's a picture --




using: 1.75 mm hook, 4ply cotton.
2 chain, tbl pattern.

i came off the craft wagon awhile ago. and then. i remembered that Making Things makes me feel about 1000 times more sane.