today and tomorrow (without beach)

today it's just me and lottie at home. she's good company. she puts herself in my periphery, makes sounds when i walk past her. shifts herself from bed to floorboards, all stretched out and hot. and i'm hot. and thoughts of the beach rise here and there. david bowie sings about modern love.

i'm contemplating my role as the keeper of secrets. another interview today. i'm excited and exhausted by this, depending upon how i think of the interviews. when it's 'data' (which it is) it's exciting. it's rich. it's the flesh and bone of a thesis. i get pangs of excitement at points of discussion that shimmer, revealing themselves as something important to this thesis and this argument, connecting to theory and the words of other participants.

but there's another side where i dig and unravel people's thoughts, words, feelings, and i'm exposed to some raw, fleshy material. and i feel an urge to apply bandages, to touch, to reassure. but i can't. and this makes me uneasy. i guess 'participants' may not want this anyway, and it probably does create a better environment for people to divulge and shed things. but i shed nothing, just take it all in.

these discussions aren't dissimilar to those i have with friends. yet they're exempt from my input and my stories. maybe this is part of my struggle. it's a onesided dialogue in which only they divulge. i'm left with secrets, both theirs and mine. friendship discussions of this nature can be exhausting too. but they form part of something larger, a continuum, another chapter in a book unfinished. the interview is finished. as is my relationship with the interviewee, in most cases (some are attached to broad social networks, so it's likely that we'll have further contact down the track).

anyway. i'm feeling hot and exhausted. i didn't sleep enough hours last night. i'm thinking about a few guys that currently intrigue me, and i don't know what to make of this. i think it's probably just a reaction to feeling lonely, and therefore imagining potential futures where i'm at the centre of someone's thoughts. i don't want a boyfriend, yet i do. i don't want to see my ex tomorrow, yet i do. and the thought of meeting him blurs my perspective on all of this stuff. i want celibacy, but i don't. i want intimacy, but i don't. i want to stop thinking about the words of interviewees and applying them to my own situation. i can't help feel that they're educating me in matters of sex, love, and desire, despite them being younger, and seemingly (but not) less sorted.

to do tomorrow:

• breakfast with ex (i hope you're not reading this)
• return that overdue library book
• write several pages about condom technologies
  
• book tickets to xavier le roy
• swim