the quiet room

my day was going well, and then, sitting on the bed, i dragged my computer over my lap, forgetting the hard drive was plugged in, and watched it, or rather heard it, fall to the floor. and now it's not working. my day is no longer working.

it shouldn't matter, i know. all my files on there were back-ups. except for the 12000 or so music files. i still have them on ipod, and a few (but not many) on cd. but that's different. the thought of not having that on hand is quite distressing. it shouldn't be. there's records and cds and other ways to hear music. but this is most definitely an amputation.

it shouldn't matter, but it does. it really does. and now i'm going to go to glebe (in the rain) in the hope that someone can salvage it. i'm hesitant though, because maybe the news will be bad.

once in a lifetime

"and you may ask yourself, how did i get here?"
(talking heads)

i'm going to kill my facebook account. i don't need it. it doesn't need me. let's move on.

i had some more dreams, and then they stopped.

thursday night it was a taxi on fire. well, not so much on fire as having a flickering flame on the windscreen and bonnet, as though a flammable liquid over the windshield was on fire. the paint wasn't blistering, the car wasn't burning up. i think it was parked near newtown station. a person over my shoulder says "that'd be right" as though this sort of thing was to be expected.

friday night i dreamt that chris and i were walking and stumbled into a violent street scene. a guy had a knife and threatened the people around him. one man tried to get the knife from him and got slashed across his stomach. he fell down and it looked like he was about to be stabbed to death. then maybe another man intercepted. and then, at some stage, all the fighters stood and bowed to now applauding onlookers. this was a performance and nobody was injured. i was really angry that i was made to feel frightened for the sake of street performance.

chris was in my bed, so perhaps that's why he featured in the dream. i told him of this the next morning. i haven't remembered a dream since.

most of my dreams have circulated around fear and uncertainty. i wonder if the anticipation of seeing haneke's the white ribbon was intercepting with my sleeping thoughts. i saw it last night. that deserves its own post and further contemplation on my part, but it seemed to connect to the trajectory of my dreams. though maybe it has made me more fearful and anxious in my waking life, because there's no writing this off as fiction.

bad sleep, more dreams

#1
paul kelly, the singer, wants me. he messages me on facebook to tell me so. he keeps contacting me. i'm sort of flattered, because it's paul kelly, but i'm not sure. because i'm sort of seeing somebody. and i'm staying in a room out the back of an old house and paul from melbourne is there too. too many pauls.

#2
i remember that i'd met with 2 potential supervisors from UTS, but forgot to tell them that i'm staying at UNSW. i can't quite remember who they were. one seemed a lot like larissa behrendt, and i'd met with her in my kitchen, where she told me i'd lots of work to do. i liked her. the other supervisor is hazy. but i remember that they were both nice, and as some time had slipped it would now be awkward to tell them i don't need them. as far as they knew, they were my real supervisors. i felt really awful, but still couldn't tell them.

#3
i'm at my brother's house (which is not his real house). my whole family is there. i'm with a partner, but i have no recollection of who this is. we give my brother and sister-in-law really crappy, cheap gifts. everyone else gives they something decent. i try to hide one of ours, pretending i'm keeping it away from the kids. at one point my niece is sitting in a high chair, eating, but turns around to push her hands into a piece of stretched white plastic behind her. it's very stretchy. i'm on the other side, so push it also, playing with her. it's fun, until i grab both her hands and then she freaks out and stops playing.

last night's dream

i was boarding an aeroplane. there was an escalator that went up, somehow, through the aeroplane and ended on top of the plane. we (me and others i can't remember) got off the escalator onto the squishy surface of the roof. it was like foam covered in plastic. not too foamy, but soft, shiny and white. it has some give and my feet slightly sunk in, with each step. somehow i ended up near the nose of the plane. others were stepping off the escalator and descending into the aircraft in a nearby opening. i somehow, and slowly, started slipping off the curved edge. we were at a great height but i wasn't scared. i knew it was nothing to punch some holes in the foamy surface of the plane and climb back up. so i did. and i walked the squishy plastic to the entrance, then into the plane. an admin person from my school was on board also. it seemed we were traveling together, but sitting apart. i realised i didn't have a boarding pass or my passport, that they might be in my checked-in luggage. what could i do or say to the flight attendant? i talked with my admin about this, but she couldn't really help. she went and found her seat. i was quite scared that i might be kicked off the flight. how could i not think to bring my boarding pass, or at least my passport? i felt stupid and anxious.

stylistically awkward

got my first reviewer comments back from a paper i wrote last year. 2 reviewers: one liked it, the other didn't. one ticked 'Yes, could be published with minor revisions', the other ticked 'Maybe, requires major revisions'.

Z1:
"While at times I wondered where the argument was going—as, for instance, in the discussion of the author’s eviction from her apartment and the size of students’ desks—the paper brought it back to the central topic and made it relevant."

Z2:
"if the paper’s consistent use of self-reference is a necessary aspect of its methodology and argument (something that is not evident in the paper’s current form, despite its thematic focus on subject/self), then this approach should be explained and justified at the onset"

Z2 asks for lots of explanation:

"The paper’s central question and argument seem implicit; rather these should be explicitly expressed in the introduction."

Z2 also says that it's "stylistically awkward".

the disparity here is reassuring. i do think my work either resonates or not. it connects to some readers but not others. and i think that's fine. actually, better than fine. an alternative might be to operate in a space of mediocrity where nobody is offended, yet nobody is excited either. at least the editor is excited (she used exclamation marks in her email). though maybe this is because she knows i'm a postgrad (the paper is adapted from a graduate conference presentation) and she's being extra nice on that basis.

editor:
"I'm most inclined to agree with the comments in Z1 - I think your paper is very powerful as a self-reflective piece - in fact, I loved it!"

so if it wasn't a peer-reviewed journal i'd be sorted? though something tells me these people aren't really my peers. well, not yet. not until i can feel affiliated with 'the academy'.

sometimes i...

sometimes music makes my life beautiful. sometimes it's horribly distracting (because of its beauty). like this morning, when i'm shuffling in my seat at the goodness of these tunes. i've been tidying up itunes (oh yeah, probably mentioned that, my new neurosis. must... have... order.) in doing so, i've been listening to long gone, and newly discovered, songs. currently it's this:



for which i have to thank miranda after our music swap of a few weeks ago. i sort of missed the boat with the stone roses, but oh, how similar they are to the pains of being pure at heart, a current obsession. jangly goodness.



though for some time now i've been comparing them to the hummingbirds. and perhaps listening to more of each as a result. the hummingbirds is a vinyl experience (since last year's $2 purchase of a signed copy of love buzz), and the pains are a common ipod experience giving my walking journeys a nice tempo, lifting me 40cm from the pavement, i glide along.



of course, these bands are different and their music spans 3 decades and 3 continents. if i knew anything about the science of music i'd probably be able to articulate why they give me the same sort of kick. for now i'll just put it down to jangly goodness. i buzz. i float. i die. it's so distracting.

more dead kennedys, more vinyl, less red wine

i drank red wine three nights in a row. not a lot, but some. and maybe that's bad. i have a hunch that it makes me emotional and stupid. or maybe i just use it to allow myself to believe that i'm not typically emotional and stupid.

on the 3rd night, last night, he canceled our plans for tonight. he said it's been a full on week, so postponed until mid next week. i was sad. i suspect he's freaking out. it has been a bit full on between us (though i don't know if he meant this). anyway, i like full on. and it doesn't pay to speculate too much, just to know that this is okay. and it is. but last night, when i felt like a sad, pathetic loser, i had to blame the red wine.

my rocketing studies have crashed once again. i've been sorting itunes, downloading music, fantasising about chris lowe, and today, jello biafra. today's youtube theme was dead kennedys. how can i not want his flailing arms around me?

i've also re-discovered the joys of ebay. and all things going well, tonight i will own this (on vinyl):

as well as this:
and then my life will be sorted and i probably won't have to leave the house. ever.

oh, and i also purchased a picture disc 7" of bananarama's shy boy. this does make me very happy. and OMG, i just looked for an image and discovered this! i don't understand. how do they work? how can they work? all i know is I WANT THEM!

actually

... i was trying to work this morning. blocked out the whole day. but then i checked facebook. bad move. or maybe not.

a friend had 'liked' pet shop boys. i like pet shop boys. in fact i'd just gotten back into them in a big way, listening to behaviour a lot in the last couple of weeks. in love with nervously, and the general melancholia of this album, the sounds, the lyrics. it gets me every time.

and so, this morning, i find myself on youtube looking at videos like this one, and this one, and this one, etc.

and i'm thinking about chris lowe, again. and i think i need to write a zine about him.

there's a pattern of chrises in my world. there's the unrequited love chris of many years ago, who often re-enters my world. i write him letters, but he doesn't know this. he's the chris of the past. and recently, i met a chris of the future. he's nothing like the old chris. and then there's chris lowe, with whom i have had a long and sustaining relationship with, through his music. (his surname is almost love)

he's the silent pet shop boy. the one who stands in the background, never smiles, is often looking away, or hiding behind sunglasses.

and in looking for photos of him (for i have sustained a crush on him for many years, and often like to look), i found this biographer's note, which sealed the deal in me wanting to make a Chris Lowe zine. from this comes my working title of "the wall of silence".

for i think this is what it is about chris that gets my blood pumping. his silence. he's probably responsible for most of these sounds, yet he avoids speaking about them. he is there in body, but never does he really interact in videos, interviews, photoshoots, etc. the reluctant star. the serious boy. the shy boy. the man who chooses silence. and such a beautiful silence it is.

in the video clips i watch (80s to early 90s) he sometimes appears to be quite sad. i find myself wanting to love him. and i do, because i can love him. but perhaps not in the initial ways i wanted to love him. i wanted to get him, to know him, to understand his sadness, his distance, his inability to look at me.

but now i realise that this is the force of my attraction, this distance. and i don't want to encroach on that space, for without this, i would probably cease to love him. therefore, the temptation to 'research' this man creates a certain tension in me. i want to get close to him, but i don't, because i already am. currently i construct him as i want him to be. the sad, serious and shy man. if i start to read things he says, or what others say about him, maybe this version of him will dissolve. maybe i'll stop watching PSB videos in the way that i do - eagerly searching for him in the background, trying to catch his eyes, or a hint of a smile. trying to catch him out, to get close.

i love him for being elusive. if i met his gaze and found myself knowing him, then this could no longer happen.

so this zine will be about my love of chris lowe. but it will also be about a certain chris-ness. the infatuation with chris lowe didn't always exist. in fact i think it first peaked around the time that chris #1 stopped seeing me. he looks a little bit like this chris. they share a sadness. chris #2 is not sad though. he laughs at my jokes. he looks me in the eye. he's less chris lowe than chris #1. but they each share a name that punctuates my current feelings on love, connection, sadness, and music.

this feels nice

i just sent my introduction off to supervisors. it was a bit of a mad rush (as it always is), but i made it. and very quickly, after pressing the send button, i grew to feel amazing. and capable. and excited by this weird and torturous (but not so torturous for now) process.

in the last 2 days i wrote descriptions of what i'm going to say in each of the chapters. some of it i pulled out of my arse. but much of that started to sound good. so yeah, maybe i just found myself a path to follow. let's hope it still feels good this time next week, or when i get feedback.

and now i'm off to eat dinner with a lovely man.

men, feminism, gender, blah

I'm not doing the work I set out to do today. Instead, I found myself in my honours thesis, looking for something to extract and send to the Men and Feminism blog. I like the idea of the blog, but I'm kinda struggling with it, and other writings about men, feminism, gender, sexuality...

Is it just me, or is all the really mind-blowing stuff circulating about these things (men, feminism, gender, sexuality) the stuff that doesn't sit down to address these topics squarely? Isn't the best stuff a little bit sly in it's presence, a little bit playful, a little bit on the margins?

If I were to write 5000 words on my relationship to feminism it would not be interesting to read (or write). But if my feminism is a tool with which to write other things, this is more interesting (to me anyway). Same with my sexuality. What can I say about that? I'd rather let it inflect itself in my words, my practices, my life. And that, I believe, has political force. More so than obvious gestures towards a named (and therefore more coded, rigid, bounded) politics of gender, sexuality or feminism. Surely.

And potentially it has more reach. If I didn't care about feminism, I wouldn't read a blog about it. Though of course, the blog is a nice way to share things amongst believers. Not everything has to be designed to kick-start a revolution. So it's good. But not (yet) very enthralling (for me).

I need to be enthralled. Send me something.