"You Can No Longer Move, I Can No Longer Be Still"

There are things I still do, despite knowing that I don't want to. It was strange to encounter BS's solemn French friend who stayed with us over the weekend. I had forgotten how I must have been after MP and I split up. This French friend, O, kept his head down. He seemed to want to look sometimes, and you know, sometimes I want to touch people just to see if it makes any difference to them. AM and I lay in her bed and talked last night, I would have touched her even if I didn't want to, because it is what I do when there is nothing to say. It is that awfully sad time of year, where to me everything seems either depressingly mundane, or extravagantly sad. I have been thinking of all the things I can do to make myself feel better, good things like intense exercise and flooding myself with light, but then I think that perhaps somehow this seasonal malaise is right. It is fitting, I know, and yet I find it so difficult to understand how people can be happy in winter. I miss the quality of light in Tasmania. It is specific, and perhaps only I notice it, but notice it I really do. Maybe it is a light memory rather than a tangible quality, but being one who is so obsessed with light, I feel that I am talking about something very real.

This time is muted. I often think about time. I don't know if I ended up writing anything about my recent feelings about time (oh time, how I love you, and and and and and hate your ways), but I know I meant to. After reading The Outsider (Camus) recently, I started thinking about how bound by time (its pieces, passing, significance, restrictions) we are, and how perhaps the reason we don't do certain things is because we are by nature incredibly anticipatory. We think about the next piece of time, and perhaps in The Outsider Mersault didn't? I also thought about Bataille's ideas about death. And the reason we don't kill people for the pleasure of it, is that because we consider what happens in the time post-killing? Of course it is simply the ability to understand repercussions, which is (obviously) contingent on some understanding of time. So I was wondering if there could be a moment of absolute pleasure and freedom where we don't think about time, where we are unaware of what comes next. Perhaps orgasm provides this to some extent? It is a powerful moment of losing your self, losing physical control and losing time. The petit mort.

Sister Wendy, A Pope, A Shit.

The Retail Nun

I asked someone from Consumer Affairs to speak at a meeting. Inspired by my contact with, and deep love of (I assume) the Consumer Affairs people, last night I had a dream about "The Retail Nun". She was a bit like Sister Wendy, only had a half hour slot on tv in which to discuss scams, bargains and general consumer issues.

I must remember to email/call Channel 31 to complain about Red Lobster, which is a late night program consisting of Very Bad Poetry, generally read by Very Weird People, who I suspect are either stoned or have some serious mental health issues. AM and I were hysterical last time we watched it. There was the dowdy woman with long hair who looked a bit like a man, but who I suspect spent a lot of time playing role playing games and talking about World Of Warcraft (fuck I hate computer games), and of course the obligatory middle aged lady with large puffy/frizzy hair and large 'hi I'm really spiritual' ear rings, whose poetry was all about women, because you know, there hasn't been enough vag poetry over the years has there? You know those women who wear big ear rings, in that scary womany/tribal way. I am (middle aged semi hippie) woman hear me snore. They are the kind of women you expect to be into clay and ceramics etc, because it is really earthy. Fuck off. I know you can't really expect a lot from community tv. The word community is becoming funny, and almost synonymous with crapness. I work for community organisations don't I? What does that mean?

I always enjoy Channel 31's 3.30am Fishcam though.

If Only He Knew What You Were Doing Right Now....

Tonight I'm going to stay at home and drink my own wee.

And Grant McLennan Died.

Forewarned is Forearmed

The rescue people rescued the miners in Beaconsfield, and Australia was in a frenay about it the 2 weeks they were down there. They are rough Tassie heroes now. People were so curious about their bodily needs. On various radio stations I heard masturbation and shitting discussed. We have to know what happens to the body in these situations.

I often dream about my parents, and it makes me uneasy. I think of those broken down phone calls from my mother, and the fact that I can't bear to tell her about my father. And I think and dream about my father, and try to imagine his new life. And I wonder if it is false? I know I have lived falsely at times, and it is painful. I'm feeling slightly ragged and sensitive. I heard the ** song *** * **** ** *** on Sunday, unexpectedly, and I haven't heard it for many years. I was in the kitchen, and I slid to the floor and cried hard and loud. Funny how you can just feel sometimes. It swamped me, and I felt so indescribably sad. It was a song MP loved when we were first together (is it really 13 years ago that we met?), and I had the 7" single of it, and I gave it to him. All the things I gave to him he kept and loved.

There are so many things I omit. I don't know if it is because I feel private, or because I feel false. There is something about violation and humiliation that appeals to me. Something about baring yourself.

AM and I saw Gotharama on Saturday night. The Victorian Gothic thing. It was funny and intense. The last scene that was performed was the woman (Moira Finucane) standing on a bed in a white dress. The piece was called The Bleeding Heart. She stood there and looked distraught, and clutched her chest. Gradually the dress turned red, and she took her hands away from her chest and her body was bleeding. How incredible.

Frank

On Tuesday whilst driving to St Kilda I noticed the car behind me and then beside me seemed irratic (the driver I suspect) and I looked over to see the elderly driver of the car with an oxygen mask over his face. He seemed to be breathing deeply and with some difficulty. He was only able to drive with one hand (not I bet he was driving an automatic), as the right hand held the mask. It reminded me of Blue Velvet. I wondered if he should be driving, and then realised that it was an incredibly funny image.


I remember looking at an Andres Serrano photo of stab wounds, and I was amazed by how much they looked like little mouths. In some strange way they were quite beautiful.