A Complex Living Growing Skin

Not a film as before, but a real live workable (sometimes permeable), not perishable skin. I'll build my own complex casing. This is what has occured to me since the conversation with KF on Saturday night. We drank beer and smoked until 4.00am (although I only had 1 beer when we got home because I had chosen the sensible driving the car option because it makes me feel slightly grown up and as if I have some modicum of responsibility and respectability), and she expressed sadness, joy, anger, pride, regret, hurt and desire. Next to her I feel wan and slightly lifeless. It is funny kno0wing that she is reading this. It is a strange version of self conscousness that I enjoy, as it makes people feel conscious, self and other. Perhaps one of the most exhilarating things about knowing other people is experience the range and immenseness of them. KF is an immense person in many ways, and I am inspired by her confidence and belief in good things. I felt embarrassed yet ridiculously flattered by the things she said, in an unearthly way. I always seem to need a safety net though. Perhaps this can be replaced by the semi hermetic yet giving and living skin I plan to grow? This has made me look at skin, and here today, amongst all these young people I saw a girl with a horrible skin problem on her neck. It was brown, cracked and wart-coloured. Whilst staring intently at her neck, I was thinking about celebrating that which is discoloured and disfigured, and I wondered where our ideas of what skin really is come from. This of course is reminding me of that Didier Anzieu thing in Volatile Bodies. It changed the way I thought about skin and communication.

When I examine the lives of my female friends, my sister, my colleagues (to some extent), I realise that I don't know many women who are the quiet ideal. My friends are loud, intense, intelligent and tempestuous. My sister is strong, brilliant, vital, beautifully considered and intensely herself. I struggle to imagine this non confrontational woman, although I do know one or two, and despise what they do. Perhaps it is true that we are all too much, and that the simpering slight sprig of a woman is infinitely more attractive and manageable than us? When do I decide to be a martyr for my own cause, or when do I decide to lie down in love and devotion and give myself over to the pleasures of the flesh? Look at someone like Shirin Neshat, and how much of a challenge she must be. Is she a martyr for her cause? I never tire of sacrifice and drama. But recently I have thought about sensible emotional decisions. This arises from the conflicts MP and I had about my unwillingness to compromise certain things. It seems like a moment of choice. I no longer have the desire to punish myself emotionally. It was a result of my belief in intensity, and how my experience of the world should constantly be emotionally exquisite, sensitive, turgid and consuming. Perhaps now I am more a believer in cautiousness rather than impulsiveness? What did Shirin Neshat sacrifice in order to achieve the things she felt passionate about?

I have been reading some of Hanif Kureishi's short strories (Love in a Blue Time), which have been addictive. Yesterday in the bath I read a story called The Tale of The Turd, which was about a recovering (or not recovering?) junkie who has to shit at his partner's parents house. The turd won't flush away and turns out to be alive....a green eyed little monster. I wanted to laugh, and eventually I did, but my first response was 'jesus, but this is utterly outrageous!' Of course it is utterly outrageous, which is why it was good. What would Bataille have thought of it eh? It seemed outrageous to cross the very serious world of fiction with the nasties of the body. The unspeakables of the body. Of course, little community, you know that this subject is one very close to my heart (and arse I suspect), and there are some of you who HAVE to read this story.

I have also found an online etymological dictionary, which is really exciting for me! Now I never need to leave the world of flowery language.

My father's post relationship journey has begun with the most intense release of previously stifled being I can imagine. He is creative, contemplative and scared. I wrote an email to him today about the process of renewal that all 4 of us are experiening. ZP and I talked about it for a long time on Friday night, and I realised that opportunity is not a superstitious occurance, but a result of enmeshed lives and lived in selves. God, he,I...we are well worn in, well lived in, have made our indelible marks on ourselves, and now we are choosing to change, and it is powerfully real. The tectonics of all of our relationships are shifting, in alignment, misalignment, alienation, intense closeness.....there is a groundswell afoot in the little family (are we still a family?), and I can't believe how liberating this feels.

So he has decided that he wants to write a book. I encourage this as he lacks the confidence to express who he really is. Perhaps between pages he can exist as the fantasy self (or the imaginary self - that life saving projection onto the wall in front of you, or onto everyone and everything you know, that mechanism for survival....). He called me this morning and said that he had emailed me. Below is some of what he wrote:

I am sorry if what follows is boring/silly/self indulgent whatever. I am bouncing ideas around. I think about my life and the things/jobs/hobbies etc. The idea simply (not so simple really) has to be teased out and written down in this work of fiction developing in my head. Can I get the crazy employee living on campus, the chain smoking dyke on the Harley, the control freak wife, the free wheeling bloke with theWinnebago/boat and a housing crisis, the rational wealth creation plan within the hype and spin of the financial planning industry, can a partner ever bounce in the same direction (off thewall)IE is a Winnebago Wife a possibility (about sea-change/Australian demography really), the control freak and a minor indiscretion, the Longines watch and the reinforcement of doubt, the moving theatre of offshore yacht-racing and the crap men talk and laugh about, the concentration and stimulation of one-design racing and what men take seriously, the art of living with a soft touch (not hurting others), care and sensitivity for hairy blokes, The Spooky Men's Corale and bloke-ism, you always have a choice, where does happiness lie, miniaturization men and the economy(something to do with owning cheaper belongings), Zen and the art of being a bloke (about enjoying now),those we instantly like, the catholic priest the child-carer and disgrace (ties in with 'where does happiness lie'), unconditional love (very personal will have to be written with great care), around Ireland with a fridge (well the Ireland experience/laughs), into a humorous, entertaining and interesting essay/short story/book. There is plenty to write about. Easier if it were an essay. But it has to be fictional characters, about their lives, certainly not true, circumstances embellished etc.I guess
its going to be about a bloke bouncing off walls and heading off in different directions. How do you invent a whole lot of characters and weave this stuff into a story? I wonder if that is the best starting point?