three coffee day

This morning I sipped latté in a Newtown side street with Jessie. Neither of us could figure out today's 9-letter word.

I rode the bus past uni, got off in Randwick, got another coffee at Bar Coluzzi. This time espresso, with a muffin, while I continued reading Foucault's The Use of Pleasure. I'm taking my supervisor's advise and burying myself in a key text, so reading about the concept of enkrateia (self-mastery) in Greek antiquity. I make notes in purple ink, from a chewed pen that somehow fell into my possession.

I walk to uni and type up my notes, redrafting my sketchy beginnings of chapter two. I feel like things are happening. Construction is beginning. It's nice.

I chat with my study neighbour about being a disciplined reader, my instructions to stop slutting my way through secondary texts. She can relate to the joys (and frustrations) of losing yourself in multiple theories.

But now it's Foucault. All week. And probably next week too.

I meet with Paris (not his real name). He says he may have some research work for me. Just a little. I'm not keen on the project. However, I'm keen on him. So I have an urge to say yes. It's only a small role after all. And I could listen to his accent for days. We come from different academic pages though, and I feel that I shouldn't like him. A stupid fantasy tied to my dreams of that place. He kisses me hello and buys me coffee. He orders two soy lattés

Me: Do you have soy?
He: No, but I thought I would try it.

And so my crush remains.

On the way home I read from Jessie's copy of Strange Museums, by Fiona McGregor. I'm falling into the text with ease. It's a beautiful glide through stories from Poland - a Poland of her travels, and a Poland of her now (her memories, connections, and ongoing research). This is her Poland, and doesn't try to be anyone else's. But it's a place I can connect with nonetheless. It seems to be about violence, in a broad sense, both historical and personal. I got off the bus and bought my own copy. The woman in the bookshop scanned it, said it looked interesting, smiled and made eye contact, said goodbye.

The man in the next shop didn't know what I meant when I asked for the Bruce La Bruce box set in the window. He went and looked, recognised that it was kept behind the counter, emphatically said 'Bruce La Bruce!', and found me a copy. He told me that he'd now learnt something new today. He congratulated me on not needing a bag, gave a pleasant goodbye.

Shopkeepers are my friends today. Perhaps I'm giving off nice vibes.

fair day

yesterday was fair day. i was tempted to go as i've not been before. but it rained, so i chose not to.

J said she drove past and felt very un-gay. S ended up going - said it was a nice crowd. i asked P if he went and he didn't even know what it is. he's not out, lives in the outer suburbs with his parents. he's one of my internet friends.

last night i chatted to A from istanbul. another person i'm yet to meet. but we chatted on cam, and i was a bit smitten by his beauty. dark features and a cheeky smile. he was in a net cafe. he wants me to find him a job in australia. he is currently jobless and computerless and therefore living at home. he's 25.

we flirted and he said he wished he was lying in the bed next to me. but i suspect my attraction is entwined with my location, my wealth, my ability to do many things that he cannot.

i love a sunburnt narrative

sydney people are pretending to be from melbourne. the weather drops below 20 degrees (but only just, it's currently 18) and people wear heavy coats and scarves. well, some people. and it's ridiculous. it's warm in my 2 layers of thin cotton.

the sydney morning herald is pornographic in its coverage of the victorian fires. it makes me feel ill. it makes me wish i still believed in objective journalism.

the language is loaded with nationalistic rhetoric of fighting for survival against the 'hellfire'. yes, the anzac spirit lives on. in journalism at least. and perhaps everywhere, if people are getting off on this reportage. which i think maybe they are. otherwise there'd be alternative narratives and more criticism, right? though maybe there's not much space for criticism these days.

the fire is not a fire, but a hellfire. journalists are ranting about how much we love our country despite it being so cruel and relentless. it's all very dorothea mackellar:

Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.

the facts are sad without all this idealogical porn that seems more interested in projecting certain nationalist fantasies than informing people about what's happening.

The names make the enormity of the loss all the more real to an uncomprehending nation.

SMH recounts the names, ages, occupations, and family situations of the dead. SMH is writing the first draft of the inevitable miniseries. and a gripping tale it will be:

TOWNS have been declared crime scenes, and the death toll in Victoria's bushfires could top 200 as the grisly search for bodies continues in communities that were wiped out.

the metaphor of crime scene, like that of terrorism, bombing and war zones are present on every page and by-line, pointing to the 'cruel injustice' of it all. the 'unfathomable' events resulting in the loss of 'innocent lives'.

what the fuck is an innocent victim anyway? argh. shut the fuck up!

just now, wading through the SMH files (i feel so dirty) i found this story opening with:

AUSTRALIANS have watched in disbelieving horror as nature stripped away the nation's clothing of civilisation, leaving great swathes of this wide brown land a blackened ground zero.

This was Australia's greatest natural disaster, and the date on which the fires raged into an inferno - February 7, 2009 - will be marked on the nation's calendar of grief, perhaps like April 25.

i feel nauseous. and angry. when i should be feeling sad.

i'm here

these vita-wheat grain snacks are quite addictive. my tongue prickles with pepper. certainly not as tasty as the falafel roll i had from man-oosh a little earlier. the best one since marseille. even without secret 'sauce blanche'.

a beautiful weekend was had. now mark's on the train home. and i'm on the couch. we watched impressive films (the wrestler, the class), ate good food, swam with fishes, climbed rocky cliffs, sweated, and more.

now i listen to the new natacha atlas album to help decide if i go to melbourne to see her. i'm not yet convinced. but it's my first listen, track 3, ana hina (i'm here).

it's strange for this house to be so quiet. i look forward to it being peopled again. though a little quiet was nice for a few days. now i'm feeling uncertain about tonight and what to do. watch a film? go to bed early? waste hours online? i probably should read.

someone told me i seemed really settled in my new home. and it's true. i am.

this week we talk to prospective housemates. i'm uncomfortable that so many people i know are interested in the room, and that we'll have some sort of interview process whereby we meet them, then discuss and select, telling the non-chosen that we don't want them. just as well it's not my decision alone. rejection is bad, even if it's not actually rejection, and even if i'm not the rejected.

song 6 is nice. la vida callada. the quiet life.

past me

i was going to continue my last post, but i'm past that now.

i was going to talk more about my blog hiatus, but that's gone too.

interesting that i discussed a me of the past, when yesterday i should receive an email from one such me. a message posted to Future Me one year ago:

When you wrote this you were waiting for Mark to get home from work so you could start cooking dinner. You were hungry. And bored. You didn't swim today because it was too rainy. But you confirmed your second supervisor. You'll probably meet her in a week from now. Hopefully things are going well there. Did you make the right choice? Will you upgrade?

i was also at Thorn St. i guess i didn't feel the need to talk about that because at the time Thorn St felt like it would always exist. yes, things are going well 'there', i feel as though i made the right choice. i upgraded.

Hopefully you're in a new city when you read this. You've been a bit down about this place and wanting to leave. Hopefully you're happy and focussed and still very much in love.

Happy: Yes. Focused: Kind of. In love: Yes.

How was France? Are you going back? When?

I hope you're wasting less time online. Focus focus focus. You always were a bit down on yourself for lacking discipline and focus. Hopefully things are okay there.

hmm... i guess my obsession with being focused and disciplined is not such a new thing. i'm always chastising myself about being disciplined. i constantly attempt new routines and 'healthy' gestures to be a better student/researcher. never satisfied. probably very boring for those around me.

Still swimming? If not, go for a swim today. You love it. It makes you feel great, keeps you balanced. Or maybe you have a new technique for this now. Do you?

no new technique. i still swim. and i did swim yesterday after i read this. and it did make me feel good. though a little sore as well, because i'm out of practice.

Do you still drink coffee in the morning, with a book and toast with jam?

indeed i do. but the coffee is shorter. and the bread is different.

i guess not a lot changes in a year. except it does.

i was also going to write about the old lady falling over at the bus stop today. but maybe that can wait til next time. i'm at work. i want to go to the beach. or home. or somewhere to buy a coffee.

imperceptibility

i didn't go to work today. but the guilt didn't last long. i started to read deleuze (on foucault). i think i'm becoming a deleuzian. or a deleuzian kristevan. or maybe my allegiance need not be defined in such a way. maybe i'm just a fan with multiple allegiances.

my blog hiatus was a result of multiple changes and re-thinkings.

one concern involves my availability of self to others - in the sense that i'm uncertain i want to be available through my fleeting words placed into zines and blogs. i've read things about myself that seem odd. i don't know how to feel. the easiest option is to retreat and become 'private'. not that i have such a public presence. but when i re-read my words of 10 years ago in something published yesterday, it's uncomfortable. those words were not meant for now. the tension that enabled them is no longer with me. i'm not that person. and that person has my name. my full name there on the page. i'm reduced to a person knowable through texts that i thought were long gone, discarded, the product of another world.

time to run. more later.

no explanation

can't sleep. thinking about how fucked up things are at the moment. that's what happens when i spend a good portion of my day reading about the conflict going on in the Gaza Strip.

i had an urge to read my xmas present - David Carroll's Albert Camus the Algerian: Terrorism, Colonialism, Justice - but opted for something slightly removed from such themes so that i might at some point sleep. I pick up The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus.

yesterday i saw i've loved you so long at the cinema. it was quite amazing, though i agree with the linked review that it stumbled towards the end. but i can overlook this for what it gave me, which includes some nice insight into my own issues of late. Claudel seems to draw from the works of Dostoyevsky (this is made explicit) and Camus through his exploration of the isolated hero, the stranger. Juliette is isolated, but so are other characters, and so are viewers, like me, shedding tears for what is not said or known. i cried at this woman's silence, not needing to know why. i cried for me. i extracted many symbols of, and references to, isolation, imprisonment, and being stuck. the film suggests to me that such things might be self-imposed. the knots can be our own doing.

as with Crime and Punishment, the reader is detached from the protagonist, as are the surrounding characters. and motives are (for the most part) unclear. there's a beautiful line in there about the futility of giving explanation for one's actions. it seems to be suggested here that explanations are not only unnecessary but impossible. can we really explain why we do what we do? whether these involve crimes, self-punishments, or tears? surely once the moment has passed, it is gone, and no clear and true explanation can be found in the past.

the same might be said of wars. we tend to speak of and analyse them as relics of the past. but through explanation we can never get to the now - to a current spilling of blood still warm. we contemplate bloodshed in past tense. afterthought and explanation. and so it seems likely to happen again.

so i pick up my copy of The Myth of Sisyphus and backtrack a few pages to recall the thread of where i'm up to. i discover the following words underlined:

For the absurd man it is not a matter of explaining and solving, but of experiencing and describing. Everything begins with lucid indifference.

i can contemplate yesterday's tears, but i can't explain them. my contemplations are muddied with afterthought, and with all the ideas and conversations and texts i've since grappled with. and so i end up here, blogging. patching together the yesterday of today, the today of many hours ago, the now which is already past.