thinking between skin and objects

this morning i read from paul schilder's the image and appearance of the human body. i love this book. it's somewhat scientific (medical), but deeply philisophical. not to mention erotic. reading it is an embodied experience. throughout, i am constantly reminded of the tips of my fingers that hold the book, my hands resting on my lap, my grip of the pencil with which i underline. between reading passages, i perform exercises of touch and perception that schilder refers to. feeling, or not feeling, my skin against objects. thinking about the space between skin and object. the sensations that i feel 1-2 centimetres beneath the surface of my outer skin. the erotic sensations at my bodies openings. the air in my mouth, and how deeper breaths are felt in different sections of my mouth and throat. i put the book down to twist my arms, lock my fingers, and enact the japanese illusion. i am touching the things around me, and touching my own body. i'm rubbing the crown of my head, reminded that i need to cut my hair. i am reminded of the clothes against my skin, and the sensations they allow and alter. i'm thinking of surfaces, my own and those of the objects around me, such as the bench i sit on, warmed by the sun. i'm made aware of that which lies beneath the surface of my skin - flesh, bones, tissue. yet sensations (of pain and/or pleasure) do not erupt from this raw material, but seem to belong to my phantom body. my body imagined. i'm reminded that i cannot own this. that it's so strange to believe that we can possess a sensation.

bus wee

last night i sat in wee on the bus.

i first sat in a dry seat, but someone had headache-inducing perfume, so i moved. and i sat on a wet seat. i quickly moved to the seat next to it, wondering if this was wee or just a spilt drink. it didn't smell like wee. probably best not to know.

i'd just given my supervisors some writing on the abject, strangely enough. so i'm thinking, even if it is urine, why is that so repulsive. it's not going to give me an infection or damage me in any way? yet, despite my attempts to challenge the abject, it was still an unpleasant feeling.

when i got home i smelt my pants and there was a faint smell of urine.

other than fretting about piss on public transport, and writing about abjection, i've been emptying an inbox that is likely to be deleted tomorrow. there's 5 years of email in there. i've started sorting and saving things, and was going to continue tonight, but i'm tired, and i'm questioning the point of doing so. do i really want to hold onto all those words, those beautiful sentences given to me by many. yes. but where does it stop. i can't retain everything. gotta keep moving.

someone has written 'today is the first day of the rest of your life' on the whiteboard in my study space. i scowl every time i see it. i imagine some horrible things i might write beneath it. maybe something like "but tomorrow is the last day of your life because i will kill you all". maybe it's just me, but i think that would be ridiculously funny. y'know, shake things up a bit, put some concerned frowns on some postgrad faces. a deterrent to future cheesy sentiment scrawlers.

slow day

monday. i started the day at 5.30, in newcastle. quiet darkness, cold tiles and the click and hum of the kitchen light. i shower, i eat toast, i tiptoe out the door. i like this time of day. i like empty streets and people in cafes preparing to start the day. moving slowly, with sleep not long gone.

it's after 4 and i'm tired already. reading and writing since 6.30am. am i getting somewhere? i think so. but very slowly. and i doubt i'll have my 5000 words ready by the time i leave uni.

my nose keeps running. another cold; another obstacle; another reason to sleep. but noone to snuggle with for another 5 days. i want more of that.

words

this morning i move slowly.

through my walking and pondering, i question my writing.

maybe it was those things that kristeva wrote about writers, writing, celine, abjection. do i write to keep a certain unity, to keep abjection at bay?

i'm planning a new project - a study of self-tourism. photo documentation of my everyday world using a perspective of wonderment. a perspective that irigaray encourages - that we may approach things around us with wonder, rather than a desire to know/understand/capture.

i was going to write about such photographs, but maybe now i won't. maybe its time to communicate without words. it seems appropriate. and challenging. written words have always been my preferred mode.

but words lack. i think about my journey to my desk today and i know they can't capture it.

they might look something like this:

missing a bus... looking at shoes... missing another bus... returning to try on the green pair... unusually warm air and too many layers of clothing... a bus ride and its soundtrack (drunken butterfly; gimme more (rauhofer remix); slave to the wage)... a guy who might be a friend of a friend... scratches on the wall... views from a window... music on asphalt... wanting things... wanting to find bathers, to swim, to have more time, to hug... wanting to read in order to build 5000 words (due monday).... asphalt... buying a ticket for halberstam... not buying a plane ticket to melbourne... not yet... an etching in the pavement says "tread carefully"... the wind carries pollen from trees - is this spring?... my desk and my brewing coffee... the boy in the ipod groans behind the divider... keyboards in the distance... they write; i write... and i doubt.

i doubt these words have any connective power if you weren't there, on this journey, as me.

neither here nor there

yesterday i went to coogee and had an urge to write. but it was short lived. i only got as far as:

"I've been to Coogee. I need not come back. Though maybe I'll come back here to sit on this rock. My place on the edge of Coogee. By the sea. Where the wind pushes away the sounds of Coogee."

i started the day slowly. in bed until after noon. unsure of what i might do. where i might go. fatigued. i'd been promising myself a walk to the beach, so that would be my task. and some grocery shopping.

i walked up and down hills to find the ocean. so many houses and apartments but no sign of life. where are the shops, cafes, and services that coogee people make use of?

i found the ocean, and it was quite spectacular. i then set out for breakfast and coffee. the food was rather good, but tainted by the staff who were abrupt and without smiles. i'm reading about the foreigner (kristeva) and i am that foreigner. i am feeling insignificant and without voice. lost and incomplete. i eat, drink, and read some more. it is here that i get an urge to write.

but the pencil stops short, on my rock. and the voices of tourists distract me (why sit near me? get your own goddam fucking space). i hate. another trait of kristeva's foreigner. and i internalise this hatred, for i lack the foundations from which to speak it. so i read some more. then walk away, back to randwick.

my fragility continued throughout the day until i booked my ticket to france. 6 weeks abroad. 12 weeks from now.

kristeva writes:

"Nowhere is one more a foreigner than in France" (p38).

"And yet, one is nowhere better as a foreigner than in France. Since you remain uncurably different and unacceptable, you are an object of fascination: one notices you, one talks about you, one hates you or admires you, or both at the same time" (p39).

strangers to ourselves

i just started reading kristeva's strangers to ourselves once again, and this time it's making sense. i'm applying a kristevan reading (outside traditional logic, open to ambiguity) and it seems to work. it's a blend of psychoanalysis and social theory, a comment upon the dangers of nationalism as much as it looks at subjectivity as formed by otherness. the foreigner is in ourselves. there is no clear line between the foreigner (the outsider, the other, the stranger) and our own subjectivity. and yet, the foreigner is somewhat mobilised by its liminal status - neither here nor there, and unflinching in her/his non-commitment to place. the foreigner is me.

i see much of myself in the section titled Meeting. me in melbourne last year, me in sydney now. me as foreigner. the me explored in previous blogs.

"Meeting balances wondering. A crossroad of two othernesses, it welcomes the foreigner without tying him down, opening the host to his visitor without committing him. A mutual recognition, the meeting owes its success to its temporary nature, and it would be torn by conflicts if it were to be extended. The foreign believer is incorrigibly curious, eager for meetings: he is nourished by them, makes his way through them, forever unsatisfied..." (p11)

still moving

lately i haven't felt much like writing about myself. or i have, but it has always passed. it's been a strange few weeks - a time that might be good to capture here. but one that is also gone. i prefer to write about today.

the cold air, my weary eyes, the snacks i just ate for dinner. time to leave my library home soon. but yet to complete my task (a thesis chapter outline). instead i message friends on facebook.

facebook is a reminder that i still have friends. most of them i never see. partly my fault, but mostly due to circumstances. i've been preoccupied with nutting out my new parameters - where i live, work, play, and how my relationship with mark can accommodate this, or not. at the end of these few weeks, it seems it can.

the anger felt at the corner of crown and cleveland streets is gone. but i remember my breathing, my near explosion. and i move on. and away.

so much for writing about now.

randwick is nice. i feel very comfortable there. the balcony off the kitchen is where i read in the morning sun, with toast and coffee. the bedroom is filled with books and fabrics and new things to notice each day when i wake. this morning i noticed a shelf of lanterns, all different colours. there are many books on the bedhead that i also own. i like this familiarity. this connection. i like my window views, the streets i walk to get to uni, the deli at royal randwick plaza, the music that guides me through these streets.

and in a couple of weeks i'll be getting used to a new home and new neighbourhood. new people with new things to live amongst. i'm looking at potential homes on thursday.