ow.

one of the hardest things in the world is not being able to fix things for people that you love.
it hurts.

towns we have never been to.

I know that if I read or see Twilight, I’ll probably enjoy it – I kinda love vampire stories – but I can’t help feeling annoyed by what seems to be mass hysteria over an emasculated male lead. It feels patronising. And Lara, that’s not meant in an offensive way, I totally differentiate between a grown woman loving a character like Edward and young girls loving Edward. And Robert whatisface is really hot.

It could be because I generally just don’t enjoy love stories anymore. I stay away from them. After my last relationship I developed the habit of only watching and reading things that would distract me completely from having to think about love and romance, and that just continued past the point where it was necessary. I craved things that were (for lack of a better word) emotionless but funny, interesting, intelligent, dark and challanging. Shows like QI, for example, and writers like Bill Bryson were really the staples of my everyday life – they were interesting, humane, honest, super intelligent and hilarious, and it was such a nice change from the majority of mass media that really sells the love or bust angle of life.

So yeah. It’s not that I couldn’t watch Twilight, or would be hurt by love stories anymore, but it’s really just borne of a habit that formed when I really could not wrap my head around love. Oh, and the emasculation shits me. I like strong male characters in fiction, or ones at least where the expectations of being a male are explored. And vampire stories are historically erotic and sexual. Even conflicted vampires shouldn’t (to me) be all schmoopy. And I actually have no idea if Edward is really like that, it’s more based on the gushings of younger girls I know that have read it. Then again, if the girls were all into slutty guys I’d probably be tutting as well. Haha. They can never win. I will never be happy with their choice of literary paramour.

For the record, my first literary crush was Attiucs Finch.

it’s a war.

I listened to Emma and got a blog. This is it. Despite being something of a nerd, I have no idea about how to link things so I’ll probably just copy and post the entries into Facebook notes, because I don’t imagine anyone will read this.

I’m confused. I have to go and ponder the nature of wordpress.

i am lost amongst the hinterland.

Sitting down to write this, I can’t tell which way it will go.
That’s a warning, I suppose; You can’t prepare yourself for what this will be if I don’t even know.

I feel I should start with a bit of recent chronology…Yesterday I came home and watched the OC, went to bed early and watched Sunset Boulevarde (Oh my god I love that film), then got up again at 11 to meet Seabas for dinner at Corelli’s. I was starving and awake, ordered a tea with dinner, drank the tea and the sleepiness caught up reallllllly suddenly. I didn’t touch my food! Waste of my last $10, I’ll tell you that much for free. Then James and co had been to MGMT and stole Seabas away, and he wasn’t returned to me! The cheek of it. Then I slept in.

Today at work Belinda and I, as per, worked with one eye on the weather and a lot of banter. I really enjoy working with her, we’re quite different in a lot of ways but it’s quite complimentary I think, and it makes the similarities that much more charming. Our window more or less overlooks the harbour (as much as it can from the Pacfic Hwy) and the city skyline, and a huge expanse of sky. We’re part pay officers, part meteorologists. It’s nice, being that aware of nature. You don’t normally have the opportunity to be when you work in an office. We watch the clouds come over from the east, almost always moving north east, or the north westerly winds rushing through the trees outside our office.

This evening I met Seabas, Aleese and Truc and we trekked through Hyde Park and up Oxford st in the rain to Realperspective, an exhibition at the TAP Gallery curated and featuring works by the lovely Tony. I really enjoyed the exhibition – the collection was based on the artist’s different vision of the world, quite literally. In some physiological/conceptual sense, all the artworks were about how we see things. Then I parted ways, and walked through the rain listening to Patrick Wolf, and visited Stef, Jack and Kim (and Matt and Andy…Full House, man, I half expected Danny Tanner to walk down the stairs and deliver the moral in the last 5 minutes of the episode), then walked home, again listening to Patrick Wolf.

And this is the other way this entry could have gone. Patrick Wolf gave me a moment. I haven’t had one for a little while, and I’m not sure if you’ll know what I mean when I try and explain it, but sometimes the world comes together in such a jagged, messy, tight way – like you’ve shattered a beautiful vase into a thousand pieces, but those thousand pieces are perefctly preserved and able to reform. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s a crystelline, perfect feeling. I was walking down Erskineville rd to Stef’s, listening to Patrick Wolf, the rain was so sheer but you could see it well if you looked up at the orange street light, the street was mostly empty, nothing that i had done or could ever do was wrong, or regretful, or silly. I tried to explain it as though I was at the end of a long, perfect life, and looking back and every detail is perfect and serene. As difficult, as heart breaking, as warped, as wasted as events might be, in those moments it all makes sense for a few overwhelming minutes, and you have no need to ever question or fear the world. And it’s not a religous epiphany – if anything it helps cements my impending athiesm – but I do feel changed for a while after it.

It’s a really fine line, though. It’s an immediate kind of peace and acceptance of the world, but it’s flip side is becoming very aware of your own mortality, of the limited tme available to make your life right, makes you awfully comfortable with every aspect of living – including death. When I die (when I’m old and happy and at the other end of an incredibly full life), I want to be buried straight in the earth. I don’t want a coffin. I would like to be placed in the earth and return to the dirt.

But Patrick Wolf. He should be revered. He breaks my heart.

What does this mean for us?
Does it mean that I can never change my ways?
And that’s why, love, you shouldn’t stay
Still you will and love me
Like a mother, or a maid bringing you down, down
Down on your brazen knees
Watering the worms and weeds
Thinking, why does love leave me so damn cold
And I’m getting old
And is this what it should be
Well… Is it?
Oh! My Augustine, Augustine!
Oh! Is this forever, ever? Oh, oh
Sweet Augustine, Augustine
Do we kill this one tonight?
And now come the tears, heavy and hot
It becomes clear, this is all we got
As I hold you to my bed
Like a cancer or a curse
Be my loving nurse
As we fall back into the impossible dream

EDITED TO ADD:
aaaaaaaand THIS is William Holden, who I fell in love with through last nights viewing of Sunset Boulevard

all you’ll be eating are your words.

A further selection of words for which I do not care:

Productive (in the medical sense – “has the cough been productive?”)
Smear
Smoke/Smokes (noun, not verb – have a smoke, buy some smokes)
Slice (noun, not verb – “I’ll have a slice of pizza”. JUST SAY PIECE!!)
Dab
Impresario
De Facto
Court (verb)
Fandango
Mount (verb)
Supple (good suggestion, Sarah!!!)

WORDS I DO LIKE
Erudite
Precocious
Verbose
Economical
Moustachioed (as long as you pronounce it “ma-stache” and not “muu-stache”)

In conclusion:

neurotica.

If, as was generously suggested, I was ever to publish my random rantings (which I wouldn’t, never fear), I would call the collection Neurotica.

I guess this could be point 16, a continuation from the last post:

16. I get neurotic as all fuck when I’m scared.

I’ve never really considered it before last week. I knew that my reactions to certain feelings or events were certainly…how you eeenglish say…skewed…however I’d never really compiled a list of the times I’ve messed things up or pushed someone juuuuust that bit too far, or bothered to do a calculation of the common factors.

The most common denomenator it seems is the neuroses caused by the (rational or irrational) fear of losing a person, relationship or, basically I guess, control.

I’m not insane, or anything; I think often it is exacerbated by a combination of personalities, and the way the other person handles it. If I am confronted with a feeling of potential loss, for example, and I react instinctively with this neurotic landslide where everything comes tumbling out, I would probably stop if the other person didn’t lead me to believe that my reaction was actually the original cause, when in fact their behaviour was guided by their own choices, and my reaction is just the easier thing to blame. Does that makes sense? I can’t really explain it.

But yes. Neurotic. That’s me. Obsessive about things I fear losing, that very obsession the thing that usually results in me losing it.

Maybe it’s just number 1 on the list of things I really fucking hate about myself.

CHEERY!!!!!

you are driving me home.

15 things you don’t know about me.

1. I can do one-handed cartwheel roundoffs
2. There are certain words I hate, and that give me cold shivers solely based on the way they sound.
3. I am something of a nerd
4. Mi Goreng has made up about 80% of my diet for the last 4 weeks out of sheer financial necessity (damn the man.)
5. I had an imaginary friend when I was a child that I am getting tattood on my inner upper right arm
6. I make the best scrambled eggs in the world, but don’t really enjoy scrmabled eggs.
7. Until I was 24 I thought Scandanavia was a country
8. I think I might have Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.
9. I have an evil mind twin in Leeds (hi Hinna!)
10. I cannot stand: melons, fruit with little seeds, juice with pulp in it, finding veins in meat when you eat it, Cucumber and coleslaw
11. I love: Seabas’ cooking, shortbread biscuits, mi goreng (luckily), mash potato, mcdonalds, burritos, trolli bright crawlers, blueberry muffins from the cafe under my work, egg & bacon pie, crust peri-peri or ricotta pizza.
12. My little Nemmy is endlessly amused about my teenage/early 20s dating stories and that makes me happy.
13. I have been a secret girlfriend twice. (secret from the family, not from their friends, to clarify)
14. My nan was found in a daisy patch in the Shire and was adopted by the mayor of Sutherland, her mother died when she was 18 and she acquired an evil stepmother who drove her out of the house and her fathers life, and many more details that it would be wrong for me to put on the internet, but trust me they’re facinating
15. I sometimes have to fight the urge to break into choreographed dance moves and singing like in Scrubs, particularly when walking through Town Hall.

Self-indulgent much? Ah well. It’s my perogative. I’m working my way through Season 1 of the OC again, courtesy of Stef, and HOLY COW this show is awesome. Watching it yesterday, was suddenly struck with the sheer GAYNESS of the subtext…ryan and seth, ryan and sandy, luke in general…it’s really not that much of a stretch.

Last night I worked at Britpop where it was SO BUSY and MEGA OFF THE HOOK (John I was actually going to mention it, but now I feel like a sell out. thanks!). no, it was really fun actually, I had people come visit and no wankers come through so that was lovely. It should be really good over summer, peeps on holidays and whatnot.
Started the night off at Fanclub, which by all accounts went swimmingly. I think Rob, Seabas me and James should start a little FB group for people who need massaging, cuddles and therapy from the stress of starting your own night. But well done, sir, and many more to come.

I was reading old essays from when I was at uni, and I found this amazing line in a poem by James Wright:

“Suddenly I realised
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.”

That line throws me. It is exactly the way I feel sometimes.

That’s me for right now, I’m listening to Death Cab (Transatlanticism) and that so sharply pulls into focus such a wide variety of timeframes. Which is interesting, usually an album has one specific period attached to it, Transatlanticism however reminds me of various things, good and bad, over the last 5 or so years. It’s odd. Like a lottery, which feeling will come up.

I really love this song, though.

roll the window down
And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

“Do they collide?”
I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn’t matter.

When you feel embarrassed then I’ll be your pride
When you need directions then I’ll be the guide
For all time.
For all time.

life ain’t nuthin’ but bitches n money.

last night was so much fun…despite the rank attendance at sosueme, the fucking AWFUL 19 hour set by whoever that DJ was (this man would remix his grandma for chrissakes. Sometimes you gotta leave that shit alooooone, bro) and the Cambodge gin that kicked the night off (it took me 7 months to forget that Cambodge gin is not my friend…), it was a super fun night.
Cheap drinks at the pavilion with Caite & Stef, then to qbar for shenanigans and we met Alex Emma and Bec. It almost restored my faith in going out in Sydney. Lots of wigga rap, a young be-flanno’d upstart who stole my glasses then initiated a kind of dance-off. Lots of loose bitchery and dry humping with Emma, several bored cops, no pretty people (apart from us), and a Danish photographer who is going to be famous one day. Patricia? Yes I rather think her name was Patricia. Anyway she thought I was beautiful, and that is a pretty astronomical thing to happen to me, so I like the cut of her jib.

Tonight is fanclub for a bit then doorbitchery at Britpop; drop by to one or the other or both.

I’m laying on my bed in the sunshine, the breeze is coming in. My neighbour is playing guitar.I had a great night last night, the next Up the Bracket is soon, I finally bought new sunglasses.
Good things.

Also, let’s take a moment because Richey Edwards was officially declared dead this week, after 13 years of being a missing person.

burning and exploding.

If you think about it, time pushes you forward, whether you’re kicking and screaming or acquiescent, all you have to do is wait and things will eventually be ok. I imagine it as being a tiny little figure on the face of a big antique clock, the big hand slowly nudging you forward, while comic curlicues of steam rise from the angry little face who does not want to move at all. Point is, you have no choice. You can choose to wade through the time you have, or you can wait to be prodded by time itself.

I’m someone who needs instant results though (I guess that’s a Gen Y characteristic, as embarrassing as it is to even partially identify with a broad label designed by middle aged academia, and that you share with the worst kind of fuckwits, most easily illustrated as ‘those who now attend Sneakers’) – for example, I hate lay-bys. For some odd reason I’ve always cited this as the primary example of my need for instant gratification, which as an example reallydoes indicate that I am truly flying the flag for consumerist bullshit Gen Y pride. But anyway, despite my need for the NOW NOW NOW-ness in EVERYTHING, waiting will eventually get you there as well (apparently) if you’re not strong enough to make the incision and suture it up yourself and get the fuck on with it.

I just don’t want to get to a point where I cannot look back and be proud of the things I have done and the way I spent my time. To get vaguely spiritual, that shows an alarming amount of disrespect for life itself, for whatever it is in you that gives you conscious thought, the ability to make choices, to hurt, to inspire; to leave. I ain’t no hater, or at least I’m trying my darndest not to be, and similarly I don’t want to hate on the whole messy, grand affair of life. It’s going to be shit, and it’s going to be overwhelming, and humbling, and fantastic, and common, and boring, and mad. Why am I resisting that? Kerouac again, you see, this is his influence. He talks about events and breakdowns and love and tragedy and hope and boredom with the same transitory tone – he hops from one pole to another, the most immaterial episodes are laden with just as much meaning and importance as the grandest ones. I admire that. I really do. I aspire to it.

My friend from Cambodia wrote to me about a dream they had – we were all back in Phnom Penh again (but not in Phnom Penh, in that exact and confounding manner of dreams), and the way he described it to me, I can picture it perfectly, as though it were my dream. The old Savannah house, the dark storm cloud sky, the fear. We didn’t know why we should go back home now that we’d been there again, and honestly I wonder sometimes if there is such a thing as a global mental phenomenon. I miss Michael and Jess and Hinna and Aida and Linda and Katie a lot – that was an amazing time, and certainly a fateful meeting, I feel – and given then chace, I don’t know if I could leave again. What I said the the other day, about finally feeling like I don’t need to run quite so hard in the opposite direction: it was transitory. I cannot wait to leave.

But I’m all digress-y. This is therapeutic, really, I’ve worked things out a little just writing this.

Oh also: Neil Finn? My absolute husband…it’s sad that Crowded House have become WSFM background music but I find them quite profound in their simplicity. Also Neil is a stone fox.

This is what I was listening to just now:

When you come across the sea
Me like a beacon guiding you to safety
The sooner the better now
And when you come the hills
Will breathe like a baby
Pulled up heaving from the bottom of the ocean
The sooner the better now
When you come to cover me with your kisses
Fresh like a daisy chained up in a lions den
I’ll know you by the thunderclap
Pouring like a rain of blood to my emotions

And that is why
I stumble to my knees
And why underneath the heavens
With the stars burning and exploding
I know I could never let you down

When you come like an iceberg float in darkness
Smashing my hull send me to the bottom of the sea
I should know you better now
When you come your majesty to entrap me
Prince of light receding
The sooner the better now
And when you come to cover me
With your kisses hard like armour
The sooner the better now
Ill know you by the thunderclap
Pouring like a rain of blood to my emotions

She came out of the water
Into my horizon
Like a cumulo nimbus
Coming in from a distance
Burning and exploding
Burning and exploding
Like a slow volcano
When you come
Cover the ground with ashes
When you come

her name, it doesn’t matter.

i went through a perid of time a month or two ago where i would dream that i was dreaming. these were night terrors a few times, i was still dreaming, but thought i’d woken up and screamed the house down to see thousands of spiders scuttling over my walls, my roof, my bed. it happened when i stayed at James’ mum’s house up the coast – i still feel terrible about that – and once again when I came home. Not pleasant. But the other dreams were not nightmares, just incredibly vivid. Though they occurred as a dream within a dream, and they prompted some poetry.
Dear god, look out! She’s cracked out the poetry!!!

They’re actually not completely as personal as they will perhaps be interpreted to be.

This first one was a dream based on a photo taken by a very talented boy that I saw a few times at the beginning of last year – I’ve put the photo underneath.

Dream 1

I dreamed I was dreaming
You were tucked up tight behind me
Sleep-slackened face sinking into my warm hair
And a thick arm securing me,
Finger tips pitter-pattering on my arm in
holy
morse-code
(I won’t ever understand it)

Elevated to
a cold steeple,
burnished and glinting
in the sunset breaching teal storm clouds.
And to see this
We were only sight
We were only
elongated necks, heads on silly stalks
Both only imagining the dizzy heights,
but soaring to them;
We were in my bed and we were in the old London sky

We were everywhere
and we were nowhere

and I woke up cold.

And this one, well perhaps it’s more personal. But it’s just a dream, and the overall feeling was something more sinister than romantic.

Dream 2

I had a dream we
were sitting in my car outside a church,
a silent summer sun bleaching grimy Anglican walls,
concrete and bare. Grass baking
between the cracks of footfallen sidewalks;

everything still and illuminated.
A high cicada soundtrack,
the pre-impact buzzsqueal of a nightmare bomb,
and as images, we were
overexposed.

Our mouths were full of fairy floss
and you kissed me
and the angles of the saliva-hardened sugar
were sharp little prisms,

diamonds wearing down
in our pink mouths.

Your memory, a gentle jigsaw, is always softer; I easily forget
your hardwood jaw set squarely,
defiantly,
against my fecund, swollen heart.