I think this will be my last post

Who will catch me?

Who will catch me?

Who will catch me on
The rebound?

(kidding)

One thing’s for sure
I can’t listen to Snow Patrol this morning.

Taking me on a ride through the city of sadness…

And another thing
Next time I’ll get it right
Or I won’t get it
At all.

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





my god! Ben Harper, diamonds on the inside!
i do believe this song will kill me with nostalgia.
good bye sweet aaron, sweet boy who loved me so much.
be happy, be strong. you'll find yours. i'll prey for you.

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


i think blogger is over for me
i won't delete it but i don't know how much i'm gonna use it

Walking at Night

The long street in the light
enmore to marrickvile
garbage truck passes
would the men inside stop to rape me?
i suppose not
but still partly wish for dark

shadows between the trees and houses
who would let me in?
if i was running from
the garbage men

their truck sounds masculine
i am not afraid
i walk so fast its like running

makes me puffed
but i could run much faster

the stories
of hospital people on crack
fighting the nurses
it takes six
to restrain them

i am never out of control
but i am running now

take the lane
off the beaten track

a man makes me afraid
but he's a baker

early morning loaves

i am safe as i pass

the garbage men
won't rape me with the wholesome smell
of fresh bread in their flared nostrils

so close to home
so early hours and so alone
like the sad men on crack

masturbating desperately
with no where else to go

i am lost
so close to home but falling further away
the closer i get

the fear is gone
the door clicks shut
and now?

Stupidly Excited

Here are two academically motivated posts. Read both. Mwa

I am stupidly excited because I have just finally understood psychogeography, which was a Situationist study of how the urban environment affects our experiences, our relationships and our lives - their actuality and their possibility. A way of mapping and analysing cities that discusses the effects on humen expereinces, feelings and social interactions of the built environment, and vis versa.

I probably haven't explained this enough at all, and you can read more by just looking up Psychogeography on Wikapedia or google, but its really exciting because I now know how to write my Fourth Chapter on Fiona McGrgor's novel "chemical palace" and Sydney!

I was just not getting it before - how Certeau and Guy Debord were in any way relavant to me - but now it is unbundantly clear and the possibilities for analysis are endless and almost tantilising!

Yay! I've got my mo-jo. This chapter is going to be the bomb!

Lucky, cos I was feeling as limp as an old zuchini about my thesis a few days ago... how things change.

Ah, the trials and tribulations of an academic!

Finally, Something I can Work With!

This image is of Leviathan - a mythical drangon associated with the sea. John Birmingham's novel constructs Sydney as a huge, breathing, teeming living creature, sprawling out along the coast, with a life all of its own:

Quote:
Beneath the shining harbour, amid the towers of global greed and deep inside the bad-drugs madness of the suburban wastelands, lies Sydney's shadow histrory. Terrifying tsunamis, corpse-robbing morgue staff, killer cops, new-Nazis, power junkies and bumbling SWOS teams electrify this epic tale of a city with a cold vacuum for a moral core.
------end quote

Was having the chapter four blues. Till Liz hooked me up with John Birmingham's "Leviathan", and Melissa pointed me towards the situationists and the idea of "psychogeography" (see below):

...The situationists' desire to become psychogeographers, with an understanding of the 'precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals', was intended to cultivate an awareness of the ways in which everyday life is presently conditioned and controlled, the ways in which this manipulation can be exposed and subverted, and the possibilities for chosen forms of constructed situations in the post-spectacular world. Only an awareness of the influences of the existing environment can encourage the critique of the present conditions of daily life, and yet it is precisely this concern with the environment which we live which is ignored.

"The sudden change of ambiance in a street within the space of a few meters; the evident division of a city into zones of distinct psychic atmospheres; the path of least resistance which is automatically followed in aimless strolls (and which has no relation to the physical contour of the ground); the appealing or repelling character of certain places - all this seems to be neglected."

------end quote

So now I am armed and dangerous, with Ruth Park, John Birmingham and Michel de Certeau, and only about two weeks to get draft done! Eeek.

The Truth

The truth is hard to swallow at times.

No one reads this anyway.

My boyfriend is gay.

He wants to have sex and I don't and I feel guilty.

I want to have sex and he is more interested in tv.

Sorry i touched you.

I don't mind, you can touch me.

But you don't want me to touch you....

Don't want me to...

Whatev

this is a transmission from hounddog ssb central.

don't expect logic, dear reader.

there's none

no one is reading, anyway...

no logic...

no viewer.

time to look-up the situationists.

mcgregor's "sense of place"

stay focused.

Another night, another day

One day brings a full stop.
A sudden and sad proclamation of an ending.
Oprah and Judge Judy...
Then we drink into the afternoon.

At the Sly Fox,
Crying only
When Gwen Stafani makes me.

The evening brings a fever;
Impulsive seeking comfort
In movement and places and speed.

The night brings friends and sympathy,
Support, belief and more drinking.

Then the night brings unexpected return.
Twice-bitten, still shy
I open myself up just the same.

Then the night brings movement,
Impulsive and healing?
Sharing sadness
Sharing imperfection.

Where are we going?

Where are we now?

The night fades into day
And busy with practicalities.
Heat outside is overwhelming,
My head aches softly, hardly at all...

The day asks little of me, but
I am reluctant
To give at all.

Twice-bitten
Shy
And cautious.
With nothing left to lose.

The days and nights are easy if
You live them one by one.

Look back and you'll see too much
To fit inside your eyes.

Look forward and see nothing.
Don't look forward, you'll
See nothing.

Another night, another day.

Becoming

Becoming is a process, not an event.

Sitting on the edge of the inercity - on the new marble wall of the Seymore Centre, by the old buildings of Cleveland St and City Rd... across from Vic Park... sun setting into a barmy spring evening over a city that has been my playground for years.

Becoming is my aim and my destiny. I am curious as I watch myself change. I try to point myself in specific directions, but becoming happens almost despite us.

New plans, new priorities, new feelings and experience. Standing on the same street but seeing different things, hearing new sounds. Some poisons once put up with - now unacceptable.

The times I've wandered the streets of Redfern late at night, alone, no money left, no drugs left, no sense of self to speak of... fading. Fading like this sunset into this balmy spring evening...

Another birthday, but it feels different. I actually do feel older this time, and it's a wonderful thing. Its a deeply wonderful thing.

The process of becoming promts a looking-back.

It is hard - at least in these minutes, outside the Seymore Centre, on the edge of the inner-west - not to look for an exact moment when I first lost myself. Somewhere in between Chippendale and Flinders St... In the endless satties and viles, the countless hours of exhausting work in the filthy, sparkling places...

Because if I found the spot in time where I had lost the girl I was, could I not get her back? Could I not re-unite? Become what I was?

But becoming never looks behind itself. Becoming is a process, and I can only watch and tend to myself, as I become a new something.

I remember now how much I love this city! In this moment my love is felt, not intellectualised or remembered from earlier better times...

The pay-off of becoming is discovering home.

No I'm not!

(Mikhail Bakhtin)
I'm not boring (apologises for previous negative post... also for bad spelling - and that apology stands from now till the end of time, I'm only making it once...) Anyway, I just gave a paper on Nightclubs as Carnivalesque Spaces and people really listened and asked lots of questions and my chapter is going really well. Here's a random excerpt (from the chapter, not the paper):

"While it must be said that both scenes are predicated first and foremost on dance and music, where doof culture may be said to represent a ‘carnival of protest’, The Chemical Palace perhaps represents a ‘carnival of survival’, where new ways of living and of presenting oneself as a human being and a sexual subject are enacted on the dancefloor and beyond... St John explains that it is the all-inclusive ‘do it yourself/ourself’ ethos that permeates these events which gives them the ability to inspire participants to something more meaningful than a passive consumer hedonism (St John 2001, 15). Discussing the ‘greater social significance’ (beyond a simple pursuit of pleasure) of the doof, St John says that ‘spectator/star roles are not easily filled’ and then quotes Hakim Bey, who says ‘the artist is not a special sort of person, but every person is a special sort of artist’ (St John 2001, 15). According to Bakhtin’s definition of carnivaleque spaces ‘everyone participates because its very idea embraces all people’, making both doof culture and the radical queer dance party scene examples of carnivalesque space (Bakhtin 1965, 7). In FreeNRG, Graham St John also draws our attention briefly to Bakhtin, discussing instances in ‘Western cultural history’ – from Medieval carnival culture, to hippy festivals like Woodstock, to modern dance party culture – where participants have escaped the regimentations of the established social and economic order; he claims that ‘history reveals such Dionysia to possess a perennial quality’ (St John 2001, 17)."

It's also my birthday on the weekend and Liam and I are working up an acoustic version of "I saw a UFO and nobody believes me"!

I've just decided to get rid of PhD blog, and blog it here, cos my PhD basically is my life at the moment. Ah, that's the way it goes.

Yay! Sunday!!!!!

I am boring

Remember when I used to be interesting?

It's like everything in my life has shrunk and slowed-down.

It is calmer. It is safer. I am happier.

But I am dull.

The most important things to me are food and TV.

It's like I'm hibernating.

Will I be a butterfly when I emerge?

Will anyone ever read my thesis?

I think I will get a casual job. With money I could be more fun.

BodyMod and zenVoodoo

I've just discovered the website bodymod.org, where you can have your own profile and post images and info about bodymod stuff, including "hardcore" such as playpiercing, etc. I've created a profile, but I'm on someone else's computer, so I can't put my pics up yet. I look forward to sharing my pics of piercing stuff - past and future - very soon. My profile is rapunzelemma.

Last night we went to see Fiona and ana perform their final zenVoodoo performance - Font, a 'tableaux vivant about intimacy, fear and disease'. It was fantastic.

I think I'll write about it in the thesis and post that text here at some stage.

Sux

Didn't get accepted for the publication as my paper was "not in theme" enough. Sux.

Will update soon on my first and second chapters - particularly my other blog.

Time in life to forget about drugs and remember the dress-ups.

Have been told I need to excercise - swimming - or my back willl get worse and worse.

Aqua aerobics anyone?

I Heart Zach

On the couch with rag-pain blues. Watching big brother up late and they are showing the scene where Zach sings Happy Birthday Italian Stallion to Joel! I am so happy that the girly-boy corset-maker has made it to the final week. Perhaps Australia loves a faggot, after all!

Had a nice catch up with Jorja last night - homemade pizzas by me and Aaron, lots of wine, talking talking... it's great to have her back in town.

Didn't go to uni today because of the rag sitch, but I have a big week ahead of me study-wise. My draft of chapter 1 has to go in on friday, and then I've got two weeks to prepare a draft of chapter 3. Then the rest of the year is basically gonna be like that. From this point on it's only going to get more hectic until completion, which has to be by January.

Anyway, just a short note tonight - go Zach!!!!!

Hi

Just got over being sick, put in a paper for publication (see thesis blog), am learning the guitar... And saw the new Harry Potter film last night... sooooo good!

Love to talk more, but I have to go pick Aaron up from the bus station - he's been away on hols with the fam.

I'll write soon.

My Beautiful Boy / His Gorgeous Girl

He walks into a room and everyone looks up - they notice his slim attractive frame, his sweet smile and dark hair, falling sweetly over one eye - but he resists attention, making himself smaller 'till people look away. He joins the group, relieved that eyes and minds have turned to louder sources of stimulation.

My beautiful boy - doesn't like to be the centre of attention.

He calls me with a giddy smaile in his voice. Shyly asks how my day was, still flirting, still as excited to see me as the day we first kissed.

My beautiful boy - treats me like I am the most interesting person in the world.

He walks whenever he can, sits patiently on busses, sleeps dreamily on the lawn at uni, watches people pass like schools of fish, like soft summer winds, like lazy saturday morning hours spent in bed...

My beautiful boy - is peaceful and good.

He holds me tight and I can feel his love; young and strong, loyal and sure. His body makes me feel calm. His body is familiar and amazing. His eyes look into my eyes and make me pretty. When we get closer, his desire glows and pulses, it is strong, but never selfish, never blind or deaf.

My beautiful boy - is a fabulous lover.

He calls me his gorgeous girl. We laugh a lot, laugh all the time - at ourselves, the world, each other. We're going to have Shrek babies, he's got a boyfriend on the side, I'm more masculine than him... We laugh and coochie coo our way through a lovely afternoon... He likes the cold, I love the warmth, but we both like to shop, both like white wine... and every movie he has shown me has made me cry.

My beautiful boy - has the right ideas on life.

He is young, his body is slender, he sleeps through the night. Sometimes he is childish, and sometimes I crave maturity. Sometimes I am old, bossy and superior, and sometimes he is proud and stubborn. Sometimes I fear imcompatability. But my evolution has slowed down, and I have gained the patience to wait and the desire to grow together. And most of the moments we share together - glorious, sweet and fine - make me feel as if there's no space between us, no inequalities. No gap that is not bridged by love, and his incredible wisdom and kindness.

My beautiful boy - is an old soul with some of a little boy's fears.

He makes today warm and inspiring. He understands yesterday, respects my scars and handles them with care. My baby makes me dream of the tomorrow; a future together. A little family, a life-long partnership... Sometimes I feel I do not know him at all, because he is still getting to know himself. What does his future hold? I do not know, but nor would I want to. I only want him to find his own way, create his own path, and walk it with pride. And, yes, I hope his future is with me, I'm selfish - I don't ever want to be without this kind of love, or far away from his soft kisses, or out of sight/out of his beautiful mind.

My beautiful boy - is his own man; a tree putting down roots steadily, growing slowly but surely, turning his face to the sun and soaking up the beauty.

So, today his gorgeous girl declares her love:

Real, sweet and growing. Keep me close and try to trust me, as I will never stop working to earn your trust and make your days happy. I want to be your constant bright star, your little girl, your equal in conversation, the arms that hold you through tears and smiles, the one that makes you weak at the knees, and the one that makes you strong through the years... Your gypsie dancing in the rain.

My beautiful boy - turned 22. We're going to one of our favourite, dark, throbbing clubs; to feel the deepest warmth (under the ground, below the rain, out of the wind...), to dance away the stiffness of winter, to remember our youth, our bodies - coiled springs of sexuality. And to fill ourselves again with music - dark, sexy, funky, joyful - and new!

Come play in the city with me again, baby. My beautiful boy - for your birthday - this time you are the centre... and the whole world dances with you.

XXXXXOOOOOO



I love you Aaron.

A Room of One's Own

(Well to share with 30-40 other academics...!)

This week coming I will be moving into PGARC 2. The office intended for students writing up in their final year. I will be studying harder and writing every day that I go in. It is a big office with individual desks that are apparently huge (haven't seen it yet), and there's no talking allowed!

I'n many ways I wish I wasn't even doing the thesis - I'm actually quite keen to get outa uni and go to TAFE to do cooking and business - but I feel I need to finish what I started. So, instead of doing this half-arsed, I'm moving into the thesis-den, where I will be surrounded by obsessed academics with no social lives, and only one thing on their minds - the documents on their desktops.

I am honestly sick of wasting time, and quite over my tv addiction - which is only made worse by the cold weather. I'm going out less, taking drugs less often, and really wanting to expand my self-expression:

Mum got me a small, but pretty good guitar at a garage sale, and I really want to learn to play it.

We are going to yoga on tuesday, and I hope to start doing that regularly.

I've paid off heaps of bills in the last few months and this week I bought boots and jumpers for winter, so I am prepared to be poor again (now that work has finished - at least until next semester).

Went out to dinner with Dave the other night. Sorry, Dave *took me* out for dinner! How lovely. We had nice wine and good catch up on everything. It was lovely, I am really thankful for our friendship, which has stood the test of time and many other tests.

Miss you, Lizzo. We probably just keep missing each other, but I'm on hols now (kind of, not really...) but let's get together soon.

Nat, I don't know if you read this blog at all, but I wanted to say I am still really keen to catch up, and want to discuss many things with you. Now that I am not teaching, I'll give you a call really soon so we can do coffee before I organise that grrrls get together. I haven't forgotten, just been busy. XXXXXOOOOOO

Ok. I'm gonna update my thesis blog now, and should be updating it a lot more often now that I'm moving into a room of my own!!! yay.

*em