Fuck you very much

Swimming today, and I'm confronted with thoughts of heartbreak boy. I get to thinking I need to do something, say something, write something somewhere to say 'what the fuck?'

He was in town and asked if he could take me out for dinner on my birthday. He named the restaurant, he said we'd have wine, he said we should erase that last time we had dinner. He said all the right things, so I said yes to dinner.

Sunday night he doesn't come to the housewarming, after asking for an invite and saying 'see you there'. I was disappointed, but not too much. It was easier without him.

Monday midday he sends a 'happy birthday' text. I reply and ask if we're still on for dinner. He waits about 3 hours before replying to say 'Could well do, gotta pack tho' and asks if I'm having drinks that night or if that was the previous night. I say it was the previous night. No response. I worry and get angry and workshop it with friends before sending another text saying 'Don't worry about dinner'. I felt fucked around. It seemed he wasn't keen. I didn't want to feel fucked around. I wanted to say so much more, but didn't.

His reply: 'oh alright, enjoy ur day and cya next time x'. Time passed before i wrote 'Yeah, not sure if there'll be a next time. I'm disappointed by your lack of commitment to plans made. Guess i'm being too sensitive, but i find it hard to be otherwise'.

The next morning: 'Dear Sydney friends, sorry to disappoint but you know how it is when you've got family shit to do and only one weekend. thank you for understanding, cya in June, and know that i love ALL of you, [name with cutesy y on the end] x'.

No, you don't love me. And no, I don't understand. And no, I don't want your stupid bulk message apology. Nor do I want your meaningless x. No doubt you see me as demanding, but it was my fucking birthday. I kept that time free for you. I was stupid to do that. I could well have organised dinner with friends. As in, people who do love me, respect me enough to be there when they say they will, and aren't emotionally crippled and evasive fuckheads who crave attention, but no real intimacy. Fuck you. No really, fuck you.

And now I'm thinking about deleting you from fuckbook, but don't want to play stupid high school friendship games. So for now you're just muted. But I don't ever want to see you. For it kills me to know that if I do I'll be putty in your fucking hands. For some reason I can't not want you. Despite the hatred I feel for you right now.

I guess I believe that you're damaged. You told me once that you were licking your wounds, and this is the image of you that stays with me. You're scared of everything. You want me to want you but you won't let yourself want me back. You give me enough to keep me there. And when I get too close you bite. A wounded animal. And I think this is what draws me to you. I can see that you need help. I feel bad walking away. I want to fix you.

But you're too fucked up and I've got a paper to write. Adios.

i'm not going to

i'm not going to new york.
i'm not going to toronto.
i'm not going to montreal.
i'm not going to croatia.
i'm not going to paris.
i'm not going to marseille.
i'm not going to algiers.
i'm not going to morocco.
i'm not going to spain.

i won't be spending time with friends in these places.

i'll be staying on my stupid continent, working on my stupid phd.

and this makes me sad.

pacifistically yours

these last few days i'm shuffling around, shifting goal posts, defusing the weaponry that i've placed around me. i want nice. i want respectful. i want to communicate openly, responsively, purposefully. i want to no longer blame other people for fucking things up for me.

i guess i've been projecting some fucked up things over the past year or so, and these things, i feel, have contributed to many relationship and communication break-downs. maybe, just maybe, i'm passive-aggressive. yikes. i'm always quick to call it, never so quick to own it. but maybe.

so yeah, my new mantra is to be nice, respectful, open. and to not jump to conclusions if someone doesn't respond to something i write or say. and to not blame people for bringing me down. and most importantly, to not find refuge in feeling misunderstood.

i hate to say it, but a lot of these feelings arose from attending the feminist conference on the weekend. i found it disappointing. i found that people didn't really listen to each other. i found that many people arrived with their agenda items, adamant to voice them, but not ready to engage in any real, useful, dialogue. what i did love was listening to Larissa Behrendt. she put me in the zone i needed to be in. she made me want to do something.

but in all, it was angry, bitter, and awkward. and i do wonder how you can change the world with anger. well, i guess it's warranted, but need it not be distilled into something else, something that shifts people, shifts ways of doing, rather than culminating in 'us' shouting at 'them'? so much 'us and them'. and that just marginalised most people there. i felt myself shifting between the margins in much of the conference discourse. as male, i was 'them'. but as a festival participant, i was 'us'. i was enlightened, but only to a certain extent. i was privileged. i was other. i was the upholder of the patriarchal system. but i wasn't. and i'm not. and i have much in common with 'the oppressed' if you wish to be spouting such language. but i don't think we should be. surely if you position yourself and 'your group' as the oppressed, then you put yourself in a bind. how can you ever move beyond 'them and us'?

there was much talk of 'the movement', particularly in the last afternoon summation. but i'm not interested in belonging to a unified movement. people felt the need to draw lines around 'the movement' and surmise who 'we' are and what 'we' stand for. what the fuck? isn't anyone aware of why the 2nd wave 'movement' fractured? identity politics is not useful here. 'we' are too many people with too many struggles to fit under one umbrella. gone is the time to move in one direction. mutual support is good. dialogue is good. respect is necessary. a delineation of 'the' movement is not.

maybe i'm stupid for thinking that we live in postmodern times.

licking our wounds

he started a conversation in chat. i entered it cautiously. he asked when i was coming to melbourne, and into his arms. i responded to the first part of the question. i asked him when he's coming to sydney. he'll be here when it's my birthday. maybe i shouldn't have asked. i don't want to think about him on my birthday. i don't want to think about him at all. but i do. i willed him to say hello tonight, and he did. i enjoyed his flirting. i loved that i had his attention, his words, and that he was reading mine. we connected. for the first time, since his leaving, a conversation.

he asked if i'd found love. i said no. an odd question that i can't help dissecting. i asked if he had. he said he was still licking his wounds. from his ex, i assumed, but he wouldn't clarify. i can see that he likes me, thinks of me, maybe even wants me. but it feels like a game of cat and mouse. he's unpredictable, flighty, off the cuff. i can't read him. so i try be less engaged, less wanting, and speak to him from a distant, safe place. but i can't help wanting to be there, in his arms. where he'll no doubt rip me to shreds.

homo erotiques: realism re-visited

tonight i watched and appreciated le beau serge. but as i watched, i craved more tortured male romance. i loved françois. i loved beautiful, troubled serge. they loved each other. and theirs was a tortured relationship. erotically so. despite the absence of a kiss scene.

i found myself editing it as i watched. i think i need to make a new version. it will be set in regional australia, and be more of a love story between françois and serge. i mean, it's already a love story, but it needs a bit of a make-over.

my version is set in a small farming town. there was enough sexual chemistry between them, so i'd leave that as is. and i'd leave the snow - that's too beautiful and important to remove for the sake of realism. i will de-real its realism; it will snow in regional queensland. the dramatic music will be exactly the same. it will jar (as it does here, but more so, because it's 2010). they would still be called françois and serge, despite their australian accents.

main scenes that need altering:

when serge has dirt on the seat of his pants, françois, while they have that chat, will say 'turn around' and lightly pat the dirt off his butt. this fits with their other scenes of touching each other.

when françois bonds with yvonne, and she says 'this one feels different', he will also put his hand to her pregnant belly. doing so, they will look each other in the eye. a moment of transference.

in the dance scene, amongst the female-male and female-female dancers, when françois and serge are standing amidst them and talking, they will in fact be dancing. not necessarily homoerotic, but it would just make sense. another scene of touching. and some eye to eye moments. okay, it would be erotic.

at some point, towards the end, marie would have a monologue. she deserves one. she needs to say something so she doesn't just become the immoral slut archetype.

i could write more on the final scene, but i won't, so as not to spoil. but i would like to add a teardrop to someone's face.

pablo and the utterance

tomorrow i'm heading west. six hours on a train. i just did the math and that's 6 hours without coffee! so i bought some choc-coated beans in my travels, between pool and desk. hopefully that will suffice.

i booked the train yesterday and keep forgetting that it's tomorrow. this feels unlike the me of late. i've not been so motivated and tend to pike on most outings. unmotivated and unproductive. and uncertain about continuing my phd. today i saw the uni counselor. it was my first counseling session ever. an event. one i wasn't going to write about here, but umm...

i went for at least 2 reasons. the first was strategic: i wanted to record something of what i'm feeling at the moment in an official way. i feel somewhat harassed and unloved by my 'school', so i wanted to register this. and if my school wants to initiate stuff (like my review panel), then maybe i've got a piece of paper to say 'back the fuck off.' the second reason: i want to stop whining so much to friends and people around me. they've got their own shit to deal with and lately my conversations have been one-sided. not that i won't continue to whine, but it'll be good to try and disburse that whining. and maybe the counselor can help me get through this. i guess that's a third reason, but one imbued with cynicism.

i fill out a survey, i do some reading in the waiting room, and then He comes to get me, shakes my hand, takes me to His chamber.

i was told i have depression. at least that's what my survey results suggested. He did paraphrase it nicely with 'according to your survey you have severe depression.' ouch. really? no way! that's what the survey says anyway, which is what i said. and so here i am in a confessional zone. but i'm still cynical, so it's okay. and i'm not really here, for real, but as a tourist. i've read foucault, i know how it goes, etc. but regardless, those words caused some sort of ripple sensation. conscious of reason #1 for being here, i felt that actually, this is good. 'severe' is good. take that director, supervisor, and panel chair! you've been hammering away at a severely depressed individual. how horrible you must be. no wonder the 'school' is turning to shit. ha! but for other reasons, i wasn't so happy about the utterance.

it was conversational, i was lucid, i talked about my other coping strategies - swimming, writing, though i neglected to mention knitting. we figured out that things are better when i have a routine going. that's when i eat better, sleep better, get more exercise. and i guess i'm more phd-productive too. so this is something to continue. i already knew this, but it was a good reminder. i wasn't given any tasks (i expected tasks), but He did talk about how i need to ask more of my supervisors, requesting what i need from them. i need to ask for positive feedback. He said that most supervisors aren't good at this, but since they're getting 'buckets of money' we students need to make sure we get what we need. i liked the image of SV getting handed buckets of money. i like the thought of getting what i need.

He thinks we should meet again. so do i. He gave me things to read. He said they might be of use, that there's probably one sentence in there that's useful. i like His approach - He either senses my cynicism or shares it.

so that was it. we shall meet again and talk some more in a few weeks time. He will sit before me and write more things behind his manilla folder. and i'll wish that He was my supervisor.

my swim was good. i lost count on my second or third lap. i tried to make myself not count laps (this should be about enjoyment), but i did. i pushed myself hard, early. it was great and severe, just like my depression. why do things in halves?

and i write everything but a thesis. but that's okay. maybe now i have an excuse. or a lever with which to ease my guilt.

the joy of quitting

i'm on the verge of quitting the phd. well, 'suspending' it indefinitely. quitting comes later perhaps.

i've had some nice times over the last few days, forgetting the looming phd cloud. but it always returns and brings feelings of guilt (for not working) and failure (for not being able to do this). it's the abusive partner that i can't shake, because some days, when i look at her, i think 'she's not so bad. we could make this work. it's me, not her. i need to work harder on this...'

yesterday i learnt to knit. last night (whilst knitting) jessie and i spoke about playing tennis today. the smiths were in the background. at that moment i considered a life of knitting, playing tennis, and listening to the smiths. a perfect life. a fantasy, but maybe it's possible. and maybe it comes back to my happiness and ways to find it once again.

though i'm not always unhappy. as mentioned, i sometimes forget my thesis and then i can be happy. i can even meet someone (as i did last week) with whom to start something (not yet sure what that thing is). but when the cloud re-emerges, so does my paralysis, of not knowing what to do.

everyone tells me to keep going, to not give up, to persist. why is nobody telling me their stories of quitting and it being the best thing ever? because surely i'd be happier. and surely that's more important than this. but 'this' has come to represent my future career prospects, my entry into academia, a place where many of these other people reside. many advisers are also doing their phds, so maybe their 'don't quit' advice is tinged by their own desire to keep going, and their thinking that quitting cannot be an option. but it is, for me. it's a very real option, and i feel its joyous pinch. and i think about the novels i can read, the writing i can do, the relaxation that might become available to me. i think of working for money (not love - ie. proving myself as a potential researcher/academic). i think of weekends that are really weekends. all this is immense and wonderful. i think of reading kristeva, foucault, irigaray, lyotard, etc, because i want to lose myself in the rhythm of their words, not because i need to know them, pilfer what i can, and prove myself.