from the island of my bed

work. followed by more work. a bit of study but then it's back to work. and then i forget where i'm at with study and i have to backtrack. and then i work some more.

that's been the pattern of my work/study life these past few months. oh, and there's all that other stuff around flirting and sex with the boss. but i think that's over now. and it's such a relief.

i had a birthday. i'm 34. sometimes i feel much younger than this, but other times i'm 40+. i guess it all evens out. i am what i am.

i cooked dinner for my friends, and it felt like a nice to thing to do, to experience, to share. i felt very satisfied in the circle of people around at this moment. i felt loved. and love.

and then i got sick. a mild flu that makes me want to curl up and sleep for days. with heavy blankets pushing me into the bed, experiencing great warmth. i've been having lots of baths, sweating beneath hot water, melting my muscles. then i climb into bed and sleep for what could be several years.

i've been reassessing my time. nothing new, i know this. but it feels like things are shifting, and maybe i'm becoming more aware of what i want. and what i don't want.

i don't want a boss who only wants to sleep with me. i would rather a boss who is a friend. i thought we had a friendship, but lately the signs tell me otherwise. he likes me, but i'm little more than an ego device for him. someone to feed his needs. and when i don't, he tries his hand at emotional blackmail. i don't need this. i don't even like him sexually. if he wasn't french i probably would never have gone there. or would i?

but i stopped replying to his message and now he seems angry and upset and told me not to come to work today, on his last day, where we were meant to settle things with the project. it all seems very odd. what has he done with my project, my work? and why can't we discuss it like colleagues and not jilted lovers? mostly i can't care. so i won't go into work. i'll just do some study, have a nap, repair myself from this flu.

but a part of me wonders what he's telling others, such as his partner (our boss). potentially i'm being blamed for things. but still, i've not enough energy to care. at least not today.

he's messaging me now on gmail. i'll get to that later.

i've been considering taking a semester off study. stressing about time and that which i've lost already. maybe i need an extra 6 months. although, going back to it this morning, working on my introduction, i'm starting to think that maybe i am selling myself short. i have done quite a bit. though it feels so small. if i count the months and days i've been involved in this project, there seems to be very little to show. but maybe it's not all about the text i have created, but the shifts in thinking i've been undergoing, the reading, the contemplating, the application of theory throughout daily life. maybe the consideration of such things suggests that i have been immersed from day one, and i haven't paused once.

working with theory is strange like that. i feel as though i need a decade to swim in what i want to familiarise myself with, engage in, utilise, build upon. but there is no decade. there is no time. there is work and more work. there's relationships and birthdays and sickness and sex with your boss and ensuing emotional blackmail and a host of other factors that i must contend with on any given day. and maybe to lock myself away from this will make me unable to write anyway, for i will have nothing to fight for or against.

maybe. but i think i might just stick with it for now. i think i just need to contend with my confidence issues and put more trust into my academic abilities. to stop feeling like a fraud would be nice. and this morning, in reading through stuff i've written, there was a glimmer of something. maybe i'm good after all.

quietly active

blogging, like most of my online activities, has all but stopped.

today, someone somewhere connected a cable that will give us home internet again. by next week we'll be online i suppose.

that will be good.

i've saved a lot of time from this. though there has been a slow-building frustration in not being able to access maps, timetables, phone numbers, and the kinds of things that make navigation a little easier.

if i had a connection today i would have emailed work to say i'm working from home. but there's no email, and no access to stuff i might need online. so i came to work.

today was my latest-ever-arrival - i got here after 4pm. it would have been sooner than 4 had my bus not been very very late. instead i arrived when all the decent coffee-venders were shut. so i turned to sugar.

i now share an office with 3 others, one of whom has an assortment of lolly jars on her desk. she proudly services the sugar needs of all staff. my teeth are tingling.

and now, a couple of hours in, it's time to go home.

badness is goodness

pablo is a bad student. he's about to go to lunch. and then he's going shopping. and then he's going for a sexual health check up.

no time for writing today. but maybe, over lunch, he will make a few words. he will go to that sandwich shop in randwick. and then he's likely to eat an almond croissant at the bus stop.

and the breeze will catch in his billowing hair as the bus speeds away.

retreat

i think this is stress. this is not wanting to leave the house, not wanting to go to work, not wanting to engage.

this is wanting to spend a day alone, reading, tidying, contemplating, being.

at uni now, but i'm at my library desk. it's a 'work' day, but i'm considering not going to work. wondering how long it'll be before i get a text message asking if i'm coming in today. feeling under pressure. and so i retreat. to this desk, to this blog.

and everything presents itself as a barrier. last night we lost our electricity. just our building, not the neighbourhood. it's nothing serious, i know this, but i feel that it's another hurdle to deal with. like work, and Paris, and everything.

perhaps my phd supervisor will want to speak to me today, to go over the chapter outline. but i don't want to engage with her either. maybe i'll feel like crying, like on tuesday, when Paris was talking about quantitative research methodologies and i could not comprehend anything. a foreign language that made me feel stupid, made me question why i'm doing this work and whether i'm at all capable. is it only because he wants to fuck me? i feel so stupid.

so i want to concentrate on my phd, where i feel less stupid. i want to put myself back where i'm comfortable. but there's no time.

except maybe there is. maybe i can do some writing now to feel like a student again. to feel somewhat competent and capable. to remind myself that all is okay.

offline but no time

it's very hot here at my once-a-week faraway uni. my pants are sticking to the backs of my legs. my shoes want to be taken off. as does my t-shirt. i need a beach.

the working day is almost done. one more tutorial. the one that was difficult last week, when people weren't speaking, were looking down. hopefully my chatty students are back.

i lost my monday (my study day) this week, so have felt a bit stressed and scrambled. will i manage to study this week? and it's been a week since i had a swim? what's going on? where are my hours?

the weekend was lost to Newie. but it was a good loss. i spent time with my faraway boyfriend. i stayed, for the first time, in his new temporary home. it's an unusual space to be in, as us. we were both a bit whingey. but we made some special moments too. we watched Shortbus again. we (over)indulged in good food. we said goodbye to Bull St.

yesterday was a bad mood. Paris wanted my attention and cooperation, but he didn't get it. he later said i was shy. not shy, but stressed. and today i'm staying offline so as not to chat with him. i'm tired of him. i'm uncertain. i'm wanting a slice of spare time to work on my thesis. so i'm avoiding the difficult stuff. yet i'm filling my evenings with everything except him.

tonight is my only free night. but it's not, because i plan to hire dvds from the video library i joined on friday. it's $1 weekly dvds night. this makes me a little excited. no talking, no thinking about the difficult stuff, just me before the screen. a replacement screen perhaps, now that the interweb is available at home. but this too is a good loss. i'm liking my newfound inaccessibility. i'm liking my new prioritisation of offline communication.

in today's tute we talked about online chatting as a form of communication (a thing of my past). we spoke of how 'chat' has informed speech. some students admitted to saying ROFL and OMG (as in oh-em-gee) in everyday speech. weird. i guess i am an old man after all.

quiet office sushi

this sushi is overpriced and tastes like shit.

the office is empty today. everyone is out at an all-day strategic planning meeting. though Paris just messaged me to say he's on the bus heading here. what does this mean?

our conversations are getting more and more explicit. about fantasies and bodies and where they might fit together. but no sex. this week he bought me a book. when i question this he tells me i'm making things complicated. and this pissed me off. things are complicated. if i'm risking my employment and candidature then i think it's a valid concern. so i continue to sway in my affections. it's mostly in his company that my desire swells. but away from him i lose interest. i find myself affected by his presence, even though i know he's playing his seduction cards. but they are nice cards to be dealt.

they charge extra for wasabi. and i didn't get enough soy sauce. they probably charge for that too.

just met with supervisor (VK). got some positive reinforcement that i'm on track, that good advances have been made. i like our meetings. they mostly involve her telling me stories of friends, colleagues, events - all relating to Foucault, power, governmentality, etc. i will miss her next semester. currently feeling inspired to work on my chapter drafts so that she can praise me some more (though i can never be sure of this outcome).

i probably should act like i'm working when Paris arrives. not that he really cares. he joked that i could take forever to do this job and he wouldn't mind. because he likes me around. he likes daily contact. i wonder if his husband suspects anything. we agreed that this is an affair without fucking. lots of sly messaging and touching. it would have gone further of course, but for me being 'complicated'.

but i quite like this space. i feel i'm in quite a powerful situation. i give him enough to keep him wanting. he gives me work. and now it seems he is buying me things. like nouvelles orientales.

he's here now. probably reading my last email. time to work.

simple is best

i've decided to restructure my communication techniques, my time, my relationships. i'm taking myself off facebook, gaydar and other sites where i can meet, message, chat, and waste hours of time. i'm deleting unused email accounts. i'm renegotiating my availability. it's what i've been blabbering about for a long time, but now is crunch time.

it's also about prioritising relationships. i never phone people anymore. the online people tend to get the most of me, because they're easy to manage. they're boxes of text that come and go. they're quick ways to say hey, i still exist and so do you. they're temporary ego devices where people can say nice things without having to look into your eyes.

i want more verbal and physical relations with bodies and gestures. i want more non-digital, uninterrupted conversation. i want more time to study.

my time offline has been a struggle. but one week in and i'm feeling good about it. it's like losing an arm to remember that you have legs. and this weekend i spent a lot of time walking. leaving the house, being social, chatting to new people.

like the boy who was seeing the dj, but also had a boyfriend. he told me how he intends to leave his boyfriend soon, he will relocate, he will find a new home for his dog. he spoke of his job in surry hills. he showed me photos of the dog he will soon give up.

like him, the other boy on the couch had taken acid and had much to say about the nature documentary that was in its 6th screening that night. he liked the part where the bat was dying. he had his sister's 10th birthday to go to in the morning. he was studying some kind of medical science, and moving back to the inner west soon. we kissed on the couch. he was 22. i felt naughty. but he kissed nicely. he showed me photos of his cat.

there were other chats. and there was a lot of annoying stuff too. like my friend who seems to want more than i can give. demanding and potentially lustful. it scares me.

he, like Paris, makes me turn towards mark. after text messages from each of them on this morning's bus ride, i decide that 'simple is best'. a phrase on a badge, a slogan of MonokuRo pig, a personal joke, a sydneybuses epiphany.

ipod shuffle gave me that final song from shortbus. i thought of mark, our conversations about that film, our weeping in verona cinema darkness. 'we all get it in the end...' is followed by patsy cline's crazy. another film, another time, another mark and me moment. i reach my desk, i transfer money for his broken tooth, i go back out for coffee on the grass with Paris.