Thursday, August 21, 2008

my body is a tomb

so tired. still at work. the hours drag, and i'm slouching heavily (almost horizontal) in this chair.

this morning, whilst sitting in a lecture my supervisor was taking, my neurons were firing, and i knew what i wanted to write here. i took a few notes - let's see what i can make of them.

i wrote "my body is a tomb"

she mentioned Schilder (see last post) and the body schema. and i thought about how things live and die in my memory. the traces remain; or not. my body remembers things; or forgets. or thinks it remembers but may have it wrong. because my memories are impure and form around my interactions with others, and their words, ideas, memories, touch. i have many phantoms.

she talked about the necessity to discard things in order to take in new things. we can't know everything. we can't be everything. so we sort, limit, and shift. we move in order to transcend. so that we can continue the process of becoming. a friend recently wrote (or maybe i wrote it to him) "just keep moving". it makes more sense today.

lately i've been thinking about old emails, and how i wanted to save, catalogue, preserve them. but they are dead. they weren't sent or received by the me of today, but yesterday. and he is long gone, half-forgotten, dull. better to dream about the emails still to come.

this week i was invited to a reunion-style gathering in october. the thought of it sent a shiver up my spine. the invite arrived from an ex who moves slower than i do, in the sense that she lives upon her memories, wishes to reignite traces, talks of times past. and this i find sad. memories can be nice, but surely the more you prop yourself up with them the more you cease to be here now. it's tomorrow that counts. and i point my desires towards tomorrow.

not that i wish to erase things. i like the traces. i like the rings that form around my tree trunk self. they give me character, remind me of my growth, they give me the shape that i find myself in today. but they do not nourish me, like the soil and the air.

in the lecture, my supervisor also spoke of the alienation that can come with being the only educated person in the family. that's me. but it's not just family - it's some friends too. and it's my ex, whose invite i haven't responded to.

this week i finished Crime and Punishment. i tingle each time i recall the following line: "seven years, only seven years!" and for this reason, on the basis of this statement and the context in which it falls (i can't give it away - read the book!), i know that i can't go to this gathering. i know the direction of my desires.

and i know not to attend for the sake of being nice.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

thinking between skin and objects

this morning i read from paul schilder's the image and appearance of the human body. i love this book. it's somewhat scientific (medical), but deeply philisophical. not to mention erotic. reading it is an embodied experience. throughout, i am constantly reminded of the tips of my fingers that hold the book, my hands resting on my lap, my grip of the pencil with which i underline. between reading passages, i perform exercises of touch and perception that schilder refers to. feeling, or not feeling, my skin against objects. thinking about the space between skin and object. the sensations that i feel 1-2 centimetres beneath the surface of my outer skin. the erotic sensations at my bodies openings. the air in my mouth, and how deeper breaths are felt in different sections of my mouth and throat. i put the book down to twist my arms, lock my fingers, and enact the japanese illusion. i am touching the things around me, and touching my own body. i'm rubbing the crown of my head, reminded that i need to cut my hair. i am reminded of the clothes against my skin, and the sensations they allow and alter. i'm thinking of surfaces, my own and those of the objects around me, such as the bench i sit on, warmed by the sun. i'm made aware of that which lies beneath the surface of my skin - flesh, bones, tissue. yet sensations (of pain and/or pleasure) do not erupt from this raw material, but seem to belong to my phantom body. my body imagined. i'm reminded that i cannot own this. that it's so strange to believe that we can possess a sensation.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

bus wee

last night i sat in wee on the bus.

i first sat in a dry seat, but someone had headache-inducing perfume, so i moved. and i sat on a wet seat. i quickly moved to the seat next to it, wondering if this was wee or just a spilt drink. it didn't smell like wee. probably best not to know.

i'd just given my supervisors some writing on the abject, strangely enough. so i'm thinking, even if it is urine, why is that so repulsive. it's not going to give me an infection or damage me in any way? yet, despite my attempts to challenge the abject, it was still an unpleasant feeling.

when i got home i smelt my pants and there was a faint smell of urine.

other than fretting about piss on public transport, and writing about abjection, i've been emptying an inbox that is likely to be deleted tomorrow. there's 5 years of email in there. i've started sorting and saving things, and was going to continue tonight, but i'm tired, and i'm questioning the point of doing so. do i really want to hold onto all those words, those beautiful sentences given to me by many. yes. but where does it stop. i can't retain everything. gotta keep moving.

someone has written 'today is the first day of the rest of your life' on the whiteboard in my study space. i scowl every time i see it. i imagine some horrible things i might write beneath it. maybe something like "but tomorrow is the last day of your life because i will kill you all". maybe it's just me, but i think that would be ridiculously funny. y'know, shake things up a bit, put some concerned frowns on some postgrad faces. a deterrent to future cheesy sentiment scrawlers.

Monday, August 4, 2008

slow day

monday. i started the day at 5.30, in newcastle. quiet darkness, cold tiles and the click and hum of the kitchen light. i shower, i eat toast, i tiptoe out the door. i like this time of day. i like empty streets and people in cafes preparing to start the day. moving slowly, with sleep not long gone.

it's after 4 and i'm tired already. reading and writing since 6.30am. am i getting somewhere? i think so. but very slowly. and i doubt i'll have my 5000 words ready by the time i leave uni.

my nose keeps running. another cold; another obstacle; another reason to sleep. but noone to snuggle with for another 5 days. i want more of that.

Friday, August 1, 2008

words

this morning i move slowly.

through my walking and pondering, i question my writing.

maybe it was those things that kristeva wrote about writers, writing, celine, abjection. do i write to keep a certain unity, to keep abjection at bay?

i'm planning a new project - a study of self-tourism. photo documentation of my everyday world using a perspective of wonderment. a perspective that irigaray encourages - that we may approach things around us with wonder, rather than a desire to know/understand/capture.

i was going to write about such photographs, but maybe now i won't. maybe its time to communicate without words. it seems appropriate. and challenging. written words have always been my preferred mode.

but words lack. i think about my journey to my desk today and i know they can't capture it.

they might look something like this:

missing a bus... looking at shoes... missing another bus... returning to try on the green pair... unusually warm air and too many layers of clothing... a bus ride and its soundtrack (drunken butterfly; gimme more (rauhofer remix); slave to the wage)... a guy who might be a friend of a friend... scratches on the wall... views from a window... music on asphalt... wanting things... wanting to find bathers, to swim, to have more time, to hug... wanting to read in order to build 5000 words (due monday).... asphalt... buying a ticket for halberstam... not buying a plane ticket to melbourne... not yet... an etching in the pavement says "tread carefully"... the wind carries pollen from trees - is this spring?... my desk and my brewing coffee... the boy in the ipod groans behind the divider... keyboards in the distance... they write; i write... and i doubt.

i doubt these words have any connective power if you weren't there, on this journey, as me.