taunted by jacques

it's an odd evening. i'm home alone, eating snacks and cooking dinnner. trying to use up as many perishables as i can since i won't be here for 6 days. i know that these things shouldn't stress me, but inevitably they do. my upbringing makes me feel bad when i waste. throwing food out is evil.

anyway, i'm cooking and eating and working on the kitchen table. working tonight, so there's less to do tomorrow. and still so much to do. and it also stresses me out.

i have some wine, and that makes me less anxious. instead, i fall into the music that jacques (the ipod) plays for me. it's mostly very good. and it makes me want to be around people. i want to talk about this suede song with my britpop buddy. i want to dance at thorn st. i want to reminisce and sing.

after eating all i can, and scrawling on many pages (bigger, curlier writing now after 2 glasses of wine), i'm thinking it's time for bed. i'm washing up, packing up, and i think of paris. and i get scared. 6 weeks suddenly feels like a long time to be away from all this, from friends, from my current daily rituals. what if i don't like it? what if i get really sad and lonely?

and then jacques plays 'lonely in paris' by gloss. no joke. it spins me out. and it makes me more anxious. maybe i should leave jacques behind. right now, he is not my friend.

wanting to say 'shut the fuck up'

officemate is back from holiday. officemate has been talking for near an hour with non-officemate about said holiday in israel, in my room, right beside me. i'm hoping to get a lot of work done today. i eventually leave, come to the library, to work from a quiet space.

they were talking about issues of israel and palestine. they were talking about how bad it was, and how officemate's israeli partner needs to understand how his thinking is wrong, so that the warring can stop. and i'm trying to work, but listening (how can i not when its right fucking next to me), wondering 'who the fuck are you to tell him how it is? with your fucking west-knows-best understanding of cultural tolerance'.

but he knows best. and he calls his boyfriend a racist and tries to coerce him into understanding the truth. but not really getting that there can be more than one truth. blind to his cultural imperialism.

he is angry that his boyfriend thinks the family of a person who commits a crime should have their house bulldozed. he tells boyfriend that groups of people don't do bad, it's individuals in groups that do bad. he says "how would you like to pay for your father's sins?" in other words he argues for the commonsense of his own culture's neo-liberal individualist beliefs as more correct than those of other cultures. boyfriend should have slapped you, i reckon. your version of family is not like his. nor is your version of culture, religion, justice, etc. and why should you tell him that your version is better than his, when visiting his country, staying with his family, wearing your oxford st shoes?

hmm... why am i so angry? why am i any better than him anyway? not better, just less annoying. i hope.

time to work. must work hard and fast from now til tomorrow. i can't wait til i'm in newcastle, with mark. around friends, not working, being relaxed, sipping beer, in the sun, smiling. ahh...

meeting my doppleganger

on the weekend i met someone who was like me. i think maybe he's the english version of me.

he loves britpop and our conversations tended to always end up there. he gets it. or rather, he experienced it (and continues to experience it) like me. we also share a deep love for the 90s tv show this life. in chatting about these and other things, i felt like a lot of stuff needn't be said or explained, cos he knew how it was. it was comfortable. but at the same time it wasn't, cos he was too much like me.

talking made me realise how much british pop culture i've lapped up over the years. like him. except he was there. and he was seeing all these gigs that i could only ever dream about. bands that never came to australia. he was being the me that i could not be.

he has a skinny body, an unusual face, a misshapen mouth. just like me. in looking at him, i could not tell if i found him attractive or not. it changed as we spoke. some moments he was beautiful, others he was not. it's similar to how i see myself, in photos and mirrors, and in general. maybe it's how we all view ourselves. but it's generally not how i view others. sure, i might not position people at either end of the beautiful-ugly spectrum, but it's rare that someone should occupy both extremes.

i liked his northern accent. i don't have one of those.

all in my head

it's now less than 3 weeks to france. i'm not ready. less than 3 weeks to finish my job, to write a thesis proposal (one that deserves an upgrade to phd), and get myself sorted. i'm very unsorted.

i'm leaky and emotional. i have hayfever. liquid spills from nose and eyes. often on the verge of tears, but i don't know if they're real or not. like my fears.

i'm stressing about my research proposal. twice, a supervisor has indicated that things are perhaps not as bad as they are 'in my head'. what does this mean? am i delusional, depressed, neurotic? probably. but are these things not real? how does it help to know that things are in my head, as though outside any shared reality, and therefore situating me as somewhat unhinged from any position of knowing?

yesterday i went shopping for jeans and shoes (intact and comfortable, for france). i was sneezing, dizzy, blurry, drippy. and angry. i hate shopping. we were in the city, and for much of the time i wanted to punch things and/or people. but i did neither. i just persisted for as long as i could, and mark bore the brunt of my agitatation. i did warn him, but it wasn't fair, and i really should have shopped alone.

this morning we fought again. the look of his face, standing near the busstop, appealed to my paranoia that things are 'all in my head'. i'm being neurotic, stupid, irrational, emotive, etc. i can see this. but it doesn't help me to know this.

yet, i do think there is some basis for my feelings. my anger doesn't come from nowhere. this morning it was triggered by a conversation in my kitchen. mark was asked something on the basis of his 'profession', but admitted (not at the time, but to me later) that he knew little about the matter. neither of them did. i knew something of the topic though, and offered my understanding. but this was ignored. the discussion kept happening, and nothing i said was heard. admittedly, i didn't situate my knowledge by explaining my past experience in the matter. but that's not my style. most people i surround myself with tend to hear me, and i need not outline my position of authority before i speak. but perhaps it was necessary this morning. i was a ghost in the room.

why talk about things if you don't know what you're talking about? why ignore people if they don't assert things the way you do? i believe this is the style of a somewhat masculine engagement with things. the assertion of knowledge regardless of whether it's there or not. from my perspective (need i really say so?) this is what was happening. i was able to leave the room without anyone noticing. i was angered, without anyone realising. because there is no emotional space in such a conversation. it's just words upon words. and i become my mother, wiping the bench while the men talk business. getting upset, but with no discernable reason amongst other people present.

and then i have to deal with the 'fact' that as i'm the only one feeling this, it undoubtably is 'all in my head'. my head is the cause of the problem, so it's up to me to fix it, to get over it, to think straight. but perhaps the real lesson here is to understand that if i'm emotional, then i can't trust myself to know what's really going on. therefore, best to leave the capable people to speak. best to go on wiping the bench, reading my novels, dreaming of france...

a waltz, a dance, and a loaf of bread

why did i ask that my blog address be published next to my name on a festival program that's also online? that was so stupid. i'm now concerned that certain people (those who may not get it) may discover this version of me. including people i've written about. oh what price fame?

please read the sarcasm in that last sentence. but yeah, i'm concerned that complications may arise if people do find me here. i've been found in the past. anonymity is not really an option these days. or it is, but i'm not clever enough to maintain it. and most people are so fucking precious about needing to be loved and therefore take offense at discovering non-lovely observations about them. i know i am.

i'm lying on bed in a singlet and jeans. a singlet! it's been balmy and stormy. but my eyes still itch. i'm thinking of taking a nap, even though it's kinda late for nap-taking. it's that or write my research proposal, so a nap is the easy option. lest i start thinking about the other option to the point that i can't sleep.

nice weekend. i danced last night in a basement with lots of lovely boys and girls, including mark. and wendy james was my dj.

possibly my favourite thing of yesterday was being handed a free loaf of sourdough bread out the door of the already-closed bourke street bakery. an outstretched arm offering bread: a beautiful gesture.

the other highlight was seeing waltz with bashir. my new best film of the year. i struggle to find words to speak of it. other than "see it!"

today i hate...

my workmate. i discovered a document on our desktop that he's working on which suggests that he's writing (and disregarding) the section of the report that I've been working on. hmm...

there is hierarchy at play.

he has referred to himself as the writer of the report on several occasions but i shrugged this off. he's also mentioned that he'd like to get a couple of papers out of this. hmm...

when he's around i'm the student, the temp, the person whom he sometimes speaks to as senior/mentor/doctor. when he actually works, that is.

i want to ask my supervisor for clarification on my role, and on who's doing what, but i fear that i might come across as bitchy and competitive. am i? i don't think so. i think i'm concerned that all the work i'm doing is in vain. that my stresses have been pointless. or that he will appropriate it for his own career advancement. this thought, with the thought of how difficult it's been juggling this job and my studies, makes me want to scream and kick holes in walls.

and there's more...

he came in this afternoon (he generally doesn't work on a tuesday), brought another guy into our room, introduced us, and said 'we're going to gossip'. they sat behind me (whilst i read over his stupid lit review) and talked about boys. seriously, they were teenage girls. competitively they discussed how 'in need' they each were, given their current separation from their boyfriends. they boasted about remaining faithful, yet whinged about how difficult that was. they giggled and fussed for what seemed like an hour. i worked. i fumed. did they not notice me? as if i wasn't hating him enough already.

and he's working again tomorrow. grr...

thinking through my badness

(written yesterday)

France approaches. I’m in Melbourne, on Jess’s couch. It’s raining and the taste of peppermint tea lingers.

Tomorrow I’m back in Sydney. I’m now doing work I brought with me – something I needed to do this weekend, but of course de-prioritised for all the fun stuff. For conversation, eating, drinking, etc. I love my Melbourne friends, without whom I could not say I love Melbourne.

Things happened this weekend that I didn’t anticipate. It seems too easy (and problematic) to blame the drugs and alcohol. Though I think they contributed to my lack of inhibitions. Last night, with the drugs wearing off, I was angry with myself. I wondered why I needed to engage in what’s considered to be self-destructive behaviours. There was no questioning at that point, last night, that this was another case of me ‘acting out’.

But now I question this idea of ‘acting out’. What does this mean? Could it be that I’m confusing inhibitions with morals? That my lack of inhibitions (enabling me to engage in sexual excursions that I would otherwise rationally avoid) represent a lack of morality? But since when have I been into morals anyway?

I tend to distance myself from traditional versions of morality. Promiscuity, drug-taking, and all the other supposedly dangerous stuff can be good, right? How else do we learn about our limits, our desires, our social positioning, if we don’t find ourselves in potentially destructive situations? But maybe destruction is too negative a word. Maybe it’s more like re-construction – a process of renovation, not simply falling apart. Which we (I mean, I) sometimes feel that I’m doing.

I’m not going to describe the events of Friday night / Saturday morning except to say that they were both hilarious and sad, exhilarating and trivial. It depends on the position from which I tell the story, or who I tell. It’s certainly not a story for Mum. Yet it got a good reception yesterday when shared with a friend in a Carlton cafe, and another in that Lygon St restaurant with a Ferrari suspended from the ceiling. Nevertheless, it’s always the abridged version – more tidy and clean than the experience itself.

Perhaps, in a vulnerable state like yesterday’s ‘come down’, reasons for my behaviours are sought and then found in the concept of ‘lacks’ – holes in my self that need to be located, fixed, sealed off from a world of dangerous penetrations. This, and all the other confusions around sex and drugs that I’ve been immersed in since birth, is always lurking in the shadows. Always ready to arrest me and make me feel guilty, bad, corrupted.

Thinking myself bad is the easy option. Thinking through this badness is not so easy. It would be easier to apologise and say it will never happen again. But to whom am I apologising? I haven’t broken any agreements. I’m just applying somebody else’s moral codes to my situation, to tell me that I’ve failed myself.

Danger is exhilarating. I’m reminded of this each time I feel a sting of pain in my slightly damaged wrist. Or when I catch sight of scratches on the surface of my skin, unsure how they got there. But maybe that’s the point – we can’t always know how things get there. That’s what makes them interesting. That’s what keeps me writing, thinking, feeling my way around.

France is approaching. My conversations over the course of the week keep pointing in that direction, so now I’m more aware then ever that I’ll soon be in another unfamiliar place. It’s a bit scary, but it’s good.