Thursday, January 28, 2010

where's my bonsoy latté?


this story is hilarious and ridiculous. but also very sad.
i had another coffee today from the uni vendor that used to do it so well. it was dismal.
if anyone knows where i might get some of 'the stuff' please let me know. i'm not opposed to black markets. or 'unusually high levels' of iodine.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

if i'm so very entertaining...



romance came. romance went. and now i lie in bed with morrissey.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

"what in the world has..."

we shared a bottle of red wine in a swanky bar. the kind that gives complementary olives. his beauty made me nervous. i thought the wine would still my nerves but i felt hideous and scared for the first hour. tired and nervous and intimidated. chlorine wired hair and a ceiling fan pushing it in my face. but then he told me he was pleased. said i was good looking, and interesting. he paid. we walked. we kissed on stanley street. then again in hyde park. and there we parted.

i played velvet underground and boarded the bus.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

four things; or the wanting comes in waves

today:
tamara is flying to europe. a quick goodbye and i feel sad. the end of an era. my on-campus existence has been sometimes horrid but i'm typically saved by our chats and silliness. her smiling face will no longer appear from over the partition. no more kitchen stories of our crushes, romantic failings, and sharehouse dilemmas. and when i break open a block of chocolate, nobody will appear with wide open eyes. i think i'll pack up my things and go by next month. i can't see this place getting better. i don't like it when people leave me. i guess i'm going to have to prep myself for more of this as the year goes on.

last night:
dinner for 6 and we were the only 2 boys. we were put next to each other, backs to the wall. we were being set up. shy at first, i barely looked at him. and when i did i thought "no. that's... no". some drinks later i was more chatty, and so was he. he seemed nervous, though maybe he's always that way. he didn't seem very confident, which is always a starting point for me. chin up, eye contact, these things are important. though maybe i wasn't displaying confidence either. dating is not something i feel very confident in right now. and there, amongst those people, shoulder to shoulder, we weren't in a good position for eye contact let alone conversation. we were being watched. he was nice. very sweet. seems to have some good taste in music. someone i could probably hang out with, but not somebody i could love. next.

this morning:
breakfast at Scrambled for the 2nd time in a week (so much for hating the place), this time with J. we hadn't organised a meet-up in this way before. generally we bump into each other. on the streets, on the internet, and once in regional NSW. so strange when you bump into one person constantly. it always happens to me. and it always feels like me and them are destined to be around each other. a magnetic force. anyway, it was nice. he's a sweet boy that i could see myself falling for. but it won't go in that direction. we're both a bit fragile. i see a lot of me in him. things i like and things i don't. i'd like us to be friends.

tonight:
the decemberists will sing for me. i mentioned them to J, said i'd make him a copy of hazards of love. i listened to this on my way to uni. so fucking awesome. i was pumped to go and see them. then i did some work (not much), said goodbye to tamara (quick and frantic), had a swim (uphill today), and ate sushi (was okay). so i guess i'm not feeling as excited. what i feel like doing, more than anything, is locking myself away to watch The 400 Blows:

Monday, January 18, 2010

catching the late bus

this morning i slept in, for which i felt guilty. on my phone was a message from J who asked if I was awake and wanted breakfast. apparently he was on the street below, but imagined I'd be asleep at the time he messaged. and i was. bummer. another reason to stop being so lazy.

but my guilt is now gone. standing at the bus stop, being late, i see a figure in the cafe stand and move towards the door. is that...? yeah, it's him. we haven't seen each other in maybe a year. he looks good. he says i look good. he comments on my grey hairs. he later compliments my moustache. he's warm and lovely. i tell him that i had a crap year, but that i'm feeling good about this new year. he tells me that last year wasn't good for him either, that he was diagnosed with MS. reality-check: maybe my year wasn't so bad after all. we say we should catch up. i hope we do. he's doing stuff for midsumma festival, like lots of good people. wish i could go.

today's lesson is that maybe it's good to be slack sometimes.

i do love my bus stop. over the years i've had many bus stops, but this is by far the finest. standing in the centre of newtown you get to see a lot. many people, familiar and strange. a sense that this is my spot and these are my people. it's a familiarity that never gets tired.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

oh no, i'm still in bed

so much for an early start. too busy editing words i've written over the last few months. none of which were written as part of the phd. what am i doing? i'm not living and breathing phd, that's for sure. though the guilt of (not working on) the phd is ever-present. i live and breathe that. perhaps that can be my motivation in getting this thing done. i can't imagine what it feels like to walk around without carrying the weight of this beast. i shudder to think it could be another 2 years. okay, now i'm ready to do some work.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

people we want

slow morning. a sleep in. newspaper flicking (but not reading). muesli eating. coffee drinking. SMH Target Word (too hard). looking at Jessie's homebrew. listening to Dirty Three. contemplating a trip to the beach but knowing I need to be here, at my desk, at uni, working.

and so i'm here.

on the bus i read the foreword to Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. i was impressed by the final paragraph of the acknowledgements section:

My final ackowledgments, to my parents, wife, and children, must be of a rather different sort. In ways which I shall probably be the last to recognize, each of them, too, has contributed intellectual ingredients to my work. But they have also, in varying degrees, done something more important. They have, that is, let it go on and even encouraged my devotion to it. Anyone who has wrestled with a project like mine will recognize what it has occasionally cost them. I do not know how to give them thanks.

so beautiful. the best thanks would surely be an impossible thanks; something expressed as inexpressible. this final line is nicely balanced with the statement about probably being the last to see the ways in which his family helped - "I shall probably be the last to recognize". there's something intensely romantic about this. it gave me the kind of buzz i might otherwise get from reading virginia woolf.

perhaps the buzz relates to my new writing project. i'm conjuring the memory of a lost love by writing to someone i haven't seen for many years. dragging this impossible love into a new fantasy. i will write him every day. i shall pick at these scabs to bloodlet. and i'll call on the spirits of kuhn and woolf to find the words i need. i'll also turn to pop music.

today's journey-to-school playlist was a selection of 'britpop' tunes. catchy jangle pop infused with longing, lust, misery. can't get much better than that. here's a taste of what i heard:



this track seemed to gel with the kuhn preface. it got me thinking about being in a position where there's nobody i want. where perhaps i'm more interested in becoming the person i want.

i wondered who i might thank when i have to write an acknowledgement. i won't thank family. i don't have a wife and kids. not even a lover who inspires. well, not a 'legitimate' love interest. though there's now someone, the addressee of my letters. love is communicated, and perhaps that's all that's needed to have a lover. of course, i also turn to barthes.

and perhaps i'll also thank chris kraus who gave me the impetus to start this. and neko case, as it was her, in that recital hall, that made me think about him so much that i forgot to listen to much of her music.

well isn't it nice
when you're loved by someone

but this love life
it just takes too long

so i'll go home

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

i love dick

it's the new year. i had stuff to write but maybe now i'm too tired to articulate.

i've almost finished reading i love dick and it's given me much to think about. chris kraus's thoughts about writing and art and gender are not strangers to my own. her contemplations give me much to consider about the politics of a life. and the choices i make, she makes, in order to challenge status quos, but which may inadvertently render us stupid by those (most people) likely to read us in more conventional ways.

through my art/life/writing/politics i aim for honesty. i wish to put my vulnerabilities and uncertainties on the agenda, exposed. and maybe this could open a new discussion away from that discussion where we all pretend that things are nice and ordered, and where we know exactly what we're doing and why.

and this seems to be why i'm a phd fuck-up. because there's no room for uncertainty in that space. this is not a zine, but the foundations of a career of a social scientist who must demonstrate (his) knowledge within the confines of an existing discourse of knowledge.

my (self-indulgent) reading of chris kraus has helped me to see this. but of course, there's much more in this novel that makes it a compelling read. i never read books this fast.

thanks anna for the lend. much to discuss.