inner meaning. isn’t that what we’re all looking for? why we turn to religion, to lovers, to careers?

i’ve been flitting through life, floating. i enjoy it. but i’m still trying to find meaning i suppose. sometimes i feel like i’m an 18-year-old thinking like a 50-year-old, about my best years being behind me. i know its asinine of course. 18-year-olds really shouldn’t be having mid-life crises! but these are the formative years, the years you’re at least supposed to be finguring out what the hell your life is going to ‘mean’.

i tend to change my goals a lot. tonight i had this brilliant epiphany.

“i love writing! i love fashion! perhaps… PERHAPS THESE PASSIONS CAN BE COMBINED?!’

so. fashion journalism. i write. i like clothes. sometimes my love of fashion makes me feel somewhat… vapid. isn’t fashion a horrible world? shallow and unfulfilling, promoting ideas about the way women should look and act and be? aren’t i the nice little girl who refuses to call anyone “fat” and who reads her classics and listens to music that “means something”? does that make me incredibly ill-suited to the world of fashion writing (i’m referring to writing for a fashion magazine, or blog)? i don’t know, but i really want to find out. maybe its my calling, writing about fashion and style and other “woman”-y things.

so currently i want, i want i want I WANT, to get an internship for a magazine that has fashion as a significant constituent of its content.

so, THE SEARCH BEGINS.

(and in the mean time i’m going to be writing about fashion so i can be like ‘LOOK AT WHAT I WRITE!’)

oh and partly because i know half the things that come out of my mouth interest no one but me. like that. i think so much, far too much. i spend hours at night thinking about these things. there are so many things running through my head at any given moment. this tends to manifest in me rambling. rambling about my plans to kidnap patrick wolf. rambling about my plans to marry a russian man and live ona  potato farm and make vodka. rambling about my plans to be a romance novellist. rambling about my Fascinating Theories on female sexuality, the value of kindness, the importance of passion, the issue of body image and size in our society… etc.etc.

so i guess its a bit of a paradox. at once i don’t use words enough, because i am quite shy, and i’m constantly afraid of making a fool of myself. and i use words far too often.

so i have nothing. nothing to publish. nothing.

it’s depressing. i’m 18 and lately i’ve been asking myself, what the hell have i done with my life? i have a bunch of regrets, mistakes, all that creative fodder and i’ve done nothing with it. i had these wild beliefs i had the potential to be some prodigy. but nup. nothing.

so i’m sitting here listening to cajun dance party and reading this shitty poem i wrote.

grand plan: a suite of poem about eating disorders based on my essay i did for text and context. aaaargh even rereading the essay is painful. it was such a labour, a labour of love and emotion, i worked so insanely hard on it. i want to know what i got for ittttt. not that it can diminish it- i’m proud. i just want to make things i can be proud of, you know? i can go ‘hell yes i wrote that!’.

i won’t post the whole thing because its mine mine mine- i am very possessive of this little thing because i poured my heart and soul into it. i put myself in an essay and offered it to my tutor. it was even more personal than it is now, though i stripped it back a lot. a personal essay can be too personal. i learnt a lot writing it, a lot about myself. it took me back to places i didn’t want to go. back to days of such intense self-loathing. days of self-destruction. days of bullying. it was incredibly cathartic.

actual result of trying to write my poetry: absolute shit. ]

SO. a tinsy bit of my essay.

Plato inaugurated the concept of the binary opposition of mind/ body (Anderson 2008: 2), extended by Descartes’ conception of the supreme ‘thinking thing’ (Anderson 2008: 3; Barnard & Fink 2002: 124). Mind has been privileged over the body. The notion of embodiment challenges the humanist mind/ body dualism. To Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the mind and body are one; they constantly inform one another; thus, we are embodied beings (Anderson 2008: 8).

The eating disordered person represents the extension of the rejection of embodiment to the nth degree; a self that is a body and mind, inexorably split. Except, in a sense, that the body is privileged over the mind. The mind, the self, all the good attributes we can’t see because they are intangible are completely forgotten as hateful attention is directed at the body.

“Pro-ana” websites often have mantras that anorexic girls follow. Most of these tend to emphasise ideas of perfection, purity, and especially emptiness. As though the anorexic can escape her own flesh, be emptied of emotion and desire and love and feel nothing. They will, with their bones jutting out, their ribs on display, faces drawn, skin pale and thin, be pure in their emaciation, perfect on the outside (and then, somehow, perfect and pure in their emptiness on the inside).

Ironically, to the eating disordered their behaviour is a way of discovering bodily perfection but to the ‘normal’ person it is a form self-mutilation. “Mutilations… are dramatic attempts to maintain the boundaries of the body and the Ego and to re-establish a sense of being intact and cohesive” (Anzieu 1989: 20 in Connor 2002). An eating disorder and its associated behaviours- starving, purging- is like any other form of self-destructive behaviour and self-harm. It is steeped in feelings of self-hatred. The hatred directed at the body s usually actually pointed at something inside that is not ‘fixed’ so easily. The outside, as is its hides the inside; the self is body, the self is forgotten.

*

Cajun Dance Party: The Next Untouchable

I can’t believe, I can’t deny, I can’t conceive what’s in your eyes,
Another mistake, another regret, another unwanted cigarette,

And do you really like me? Because one and one and one, makes three,
If you don’t hear me, then why should I hear you?

I can’t walk away,
All I can do is say “better luck next time”

The next untouchable,
Feel her,
Move her,
Believe her,
See her,

And then it comes, I don’t know what to do,
Do I feel it pure, or is that just you?

She said ‘again’, she said ‘again’, she said ‘again’,
she said ‘again’, she said ‘again’, she said ‘again’,
she said ‘again’, she said ‘again’, she said ‘again’,

And do you really like me? Because one and one and one, makes three,
If you don’t hear me, then why should I hear you?

I can’t walk away,
All I can do is say “better luck next time”

The next untouchable,
Feel her,
Move her,
Believe her,
See her,

Forget her.
Forget her.
Forget her

it was absolutely stunning. i took a few photos with luke’s camera, as i didn’t take mine, but really… it was the experience of seeing the city lights surrounding us, the incomparable illumination. for me, those lights embody what i love about the city- it is alive, awake through the night; lights, always on, the city never sleeping. always somewhere to go, people to meet.

http://jezebel.com/5275849/tillers-patients-speak-the-tragedy-of-his-death-the-inspiration-of-his-life?skyline=true&s=x

I literally cried reading this.

“I started to react as if the protesters were talking to me personally and indeed felt like everything they said was directed at me. In truth, they never see the real people behind the rhetoric.”

The vehemence of some people’s anti-abortion sentiments shocks me. It’s legal for them to protest outside abortion clinics, to verbally assault patients. Imagine the trauma of having to have an abortion, whatever circumstances it was under. Perhaps you’re too young to have a child, in no financial situation to take care of that child. You were pregnant as a victim of rape- could you raise that child? Imagine if the reason you were aborting so late was because you’d found out your child, a child you’d deliberately conceived, would be born with sever birth defects and problems. These anti-abortion activists claim to be doing this for humanity, but treat these women, their partners, their families inhumanely. The guilt one must feel when they decide to have an abortion must be terrible. The anguish, if the latter was your reason for a late-term abortion. How terrible to have that exacerbated by these insane activists. How could you NOT have sensitivity for women who have to go through something so traumatic? It isn’t some easy decision. You don’t get pregnant and go, “I don’t want a baby, off to the abortion clinic”. It defies all logic, the way anti-abortion activists act sometimes.

You can’t vilify women who choose to exercise their legal right to get an abortion. You can’t vilify the doctors who work within the law. Attack the laws, not the people who follow them. Although I obviously quite staunchly believe abortion is a justified right of any woman.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/its-so-personal-a-tiller-patient.html

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/06/01/patients-remember-dr-tiller/

More crying material.

Also this is really well-written and interesting:

http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/george-tiller-a-hero-for-people-who-care-about-the-humanity-of-women/

I really just enjoy how phallic this image is.

Shyness is nice and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
You’d like to

So, ask me, ask me, ask me,
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Oh, la…

I naturally associate this song now with Purple Sneakers; specifically me dancing very badly to it after getting very excited they were playing the Smiths and Luke laughing at me.

I love that Morrissey writes about shyness. Nobody really writes about it much, directly. He also described “How Soon is Now” as being about shyness. That’s really the appeal of the Smiths- you can talk all about how their music is sad, and depressing, and often self-pitying, but it’s music that you can empathise with. Everyone at some point can relate to a Smiths song. And I love that Morrissey is just such a brilliant song writer that Smiths songs always take on different dimensions depending on circumstances and mood. All different events in my life can be defined in terms of Smiths songs, for different reasons. Any time I listen to any Smiths song there is always some relation I find to my life, to my circumstances, to events that have shaped me.

Yes, I am obsessive in my love for the Smiths. And unabashed.

(I still think Morrissey and I could make amazing, amazing babies. MORRISSEY, CALL ME)

I know It’s Over

Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
And as I climb into an empty bed
Oh well. Enough said.
I know it’s over – still I cling
I don’t know where else I can go
Oh …
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
See, the sea wants to take me
The knife wants to slit me
Do you think you can help me ?
Sad veiled bride, please be happy
Handsome groom, give her room
Loud, loutish lover, treat her kindly
(Though she needs you
More than she loves you)
And I know it’s over – still I cling
I don’t know where else I can go
Over and over and over and over
Over and over, la …
I know it’s over
And it never really began
But in my heart it was so real
And you even spoke to me, and said :
“If you’re so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you’re so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you’re so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you’re so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight ?
I know …
‘Cause tonight is just like any other night
That’s why you’re on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they’re in each other’s arms…”
It’s so easy to laugh
It’s so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over
It’s so easy to laugh
It’s so easy to hate
It takes guts to be gentle and kind
Over, over
Love is Natural and Real
But not for you, my love
Not tonight, my love
Love is Natural and Real
But not for such as you and I, my love
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my …
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can even feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my …

(my favourite of all Smiths songs)

This Charming Man

Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet ?

Ah ! A jumped-up pantry boy
Who never knew his place
He said “return the ring”
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things

Hand in Glove

Hand in glove
The sun shines out of our behinds
No, it’s not like any other love
This one is different – because it’s us

But I know my luck too well
Yes, I know my luck too well
And I’ll probably never see you again
I’ll probably never see you again
I’ll probably never see you again
Oh …

There is a Light that Never Goes Out

Take me out tonight
Where there’s music and there’s people
And they’re young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven’t got one
Anymore

Oh, There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out
There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out

Shoplifters of the World Unite

Learn to love me
Assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a list of crime
My only weakness is … well, never mind, never mind

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Take over

Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me

Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm

Oh, GOES ON
And on
Oh, goes on
And on

Stop If Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before

Stop me, oh, stop me
Stop me if you think that you’ve
Heard this one before
Stop me, oh, stop me
Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before

Nothing’s changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
…Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love

How Soon Is Now

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am Human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

Still Ill

I decree today that life
Is simply taking and not giving
England is mine – it owes me a living
But ask me why, and I’ll spit in your eye
Oh, ask me why, and I’ll spit in your eye
But we cannot cling to the old dreams anymore
No, we cannot cling to those dreams

Ask me why, and I’ll die
Oh, ask me why, and I’ll die
And if you must, go to work – tomorrow
Well, if I were you I really wouldn’t bother
For there are brighter sides to life
And I should know, because I’ve seen them
But not very often …
Under the iron bridge we kissed
And although I ended up with sore lips
It just wasn’t like the old days anymore
No, it wasn’t like those days
Am I still ill ?
Oh …
Oh, am I still ill ?
Oh …

Rusholme Ruffians

Very old friend
Came by today
As he was telling everyone in town
Of all the love that he’d just found

And though I walk home alone
I just might walk home alone
But my faith in love is still devout
I might walk home alone
But my faith in love is still devout
I might walk home alone
But my faith in love is still devout
La …

people pass in and out of our lives. you can know someone for three years and scarcely remember them. you can know someone for two weeks and love them. you can meet someone one night and somehow they make a huge impact. and they probably will only vaguely remember you. but that doesn’t really matter.

i never really believe people when they say i’m beautiful. i assume there’s some ulterior motive. well, not necessarily ulterior. although generally i think when boys say it they are just trying to compel me to sleep with them. when my friends or my mum says it i assume its out of obligation. i can think of specific instances when somebody has said it and i believed it.

once my mum said it, and they passion, the conviction she said it with; i had to believe her. the sadness- why can’t you see you are beautiful?

once this guy said it. “i think you’re beautiful.” the moment was perfect. wonderful. it all got very complicated in the end. we don’t talk anymore. but that i believed he thought i was beautiful… well it catalysed in me a new found confidence.

a month or so ago i met this irish guy in newtown. he was the one who wanted me to say i was beautiful. people know if you don’t think you’re beautiful. rarely do guys you meet at 2:30am at bars on a wednesday much care. he was very sweet. he comforted me because i ended up quite upset,  since we had an in depth talk. i also got that once from an english backpacker. not the crying part. the saying i seemed too shy, that i was gorgeous and i should let go and have fun.

i hope one day i will say, “I am beautiful” without a silent except for this, and this, and this. no qualifiers. no, beautiful inside maybe. i don’t think i’m ugly. i’m just… afraid? i don’t know. i’ll always be insecure. most women are.

i had a friend who died
for something he really loved
i had a friend who stood
for none of the above
i had a friend whose experience
was riddled with scars
who got drunk one night
in the trunk of louie p.’s car
i had a friend who’d love to scare you
as was his affection
and tremble you did
’cause you weren’t worthy of his friendship
i had a friend, but now
he’s stranded on the mesa street exit
and sometimes i’m jealous
’cause i’m still at the intersection
i had a friend whose heart was too heavy to hold
yes there’s blood on the median
like a boat without oars

duct tape the cross on the brown colored box
single file line on the unpaved road
they tipped their hats, respect for the dead
in juarez, mexico is where they buried my friend

there are no words to express
the loss i feel since you’ve been away
you made this typical sad song
a physical classroom
where i learned nothing
just flashes of your face

it’s all a facade and nothing really matters now
he’s stranded somewhere on the mesa street exit
and sometimes i’m jealous waiting at the intersection

i had a friend whose heart was too heavy to hold
yes there’s blood on the median like a boat without oars

it’s all a facade, and nothing really matters now

this is how i feel often. specifically, that i’m jealous of those who live their lives on the edge. i do in some ways, i suppose. i have gotten braver. done a few stupid things. plan on doing many more. this is how i want my friends to describe me one day. that i had a heart too heavy to hold. an experience riddled with scars. that they could feel my friendship required some worthiness.they could describe just how much passion i had for life, and for everyone i had in my life.

today i read the blurb of some book by… john green? doesn’t really matter. the female character (love interest) was described as “beautiful and edgy”. i want to be described like that. i’d like to think one day, someone will find me beautiful and mysterious and edgy and dangerous.

i am attempting to preen an enigmatic image. i’m fairly private. don’t engage with gossip. don’t fuss myself with what people say about me. but i’m too loving and caring to be cold forever. i suppose i do seem cold, because i am shy and closed. when i get to know people though any enigmatic side vanishes because if i feel that connection with someone i am self-revealing. and tend to show a personality best described as quirky and daggy. but also neurotic and intense.

life is a long journey to find oneself. to figure out oneself. to reduce an incomprehensibly complex person to descriptors. to something simple, something that can be understood. i am a woman. i am 30 years old now. i am in love. i am stable. i am happy. i work in publishing. i am kind. i am loving. etc.

do we ever know who we are? i don’t think there is a ‘real’ me. i am too changeable. i want too much. i love life because it is complex, because it is full of possibilities. i will be a thousand girls. there is no one quintessential essence.

i will live in italy and will have wild, passionate sex with an italian man, and daily sip sambuca, and we’ll spend our days eating fine food and doing nothing.

or i’ll drift around venice and paint the canals, wander through the shops, draw the churches, the views.

or i’ll wander the streets of paris, completely alone, but feeling no loneliness. complete in myself, a small  dark figure.

or i’ll be in mexico drinking tequila, and partying.

or i’ll be married to a lovely man in new york city.

or i’ll be a beatnik in amsterdam.

does the same girl do this? different girls?

for the thousands of lives i could lead there are an equal number of women. if we view a woman as something reducable. like a book character. her own individual, visible characteristics. stories generally simplify humans, to make it easier for readers to follow. could you describe yourself in 400 words, like an omniscient narrator?

i’m going to try.

435 words

She had a way of looking more than a way of being. She could hide because she could be observer, not observed, and was often happy not being noticed, though occasionally enjoyed attention. She was more often happy in her own little world, a world that seemed to be reflected in her large blue eyes. We associate big clear blue eyes with innocence; but they grey that muddied the blue belied the mixture of naivety and wisdom that led to misadventures and heart ache.

Maybe if she’d had her childhood blonde hair she would have looked a bit more innocent; instead her hair was jet black, a jolt against her pale skin. The contrast seemed to make her seem more vulnerable; and if we looked closely at her small hands (often described as being like a little girl’s) we’d see the blue veins more visible than on most, spidering up the forearms. As well, she always seemed to have bruises she could never explain, like an awkward little girl.

That’s often how she felt. At once, too young and too old. She had naïve expectations, naïve ideas of love and relationships and sex and sometimes life itself; and it seemed to hurt her more than it would others when her expectations weren’t met. She always seemed to be hurting more than most people, she wore her heart on her sleeve and loved everything and everyone unequivocally, and often undeservedly. She was hyper-sensitive and wished she could brush things off like everyone else seemed to be able to, but everything seemed to be directed specifically at her poor vulnerable heart.

For all the frustration her constant feeling caused she was generally content; because as much as her lows seemed to spike dangerously low, her highs reached the highest peaks. She cried more than most people but laughed more than most too. Her passion wormed its way into every facet of her life but found its largest reservoir in life itself; in appreciating its diverse and fluctuating emotions and its inherent insanity and most of all its beauty. The beauty that comes from insanity.

Sometimes she felt like a stranger in her own body, and thought the girl in the mirror was nothing like the one inside. Then others, she couldn’t imagine being anything else. The black hair, pale skin, naturally dark skin, flushed cheeks, big eyes, crooked nose: how else could she look? Somehow she though she should be a lot thinner than she was, so she might disappear. Then other times the reasonably slim but soft body seemed the only possible vessel for her mind.

not even close to the whole picture!

but life is both too long and too short to ever figure yourself out. you just hope someday to find people who will understand you. i could write so much about me but only scratch the surface. there is too much abot myself that i haven’t discovered.

(it reminds me of the downunder in port macqaurie for various reasons. ahem.)

such songs include :

‘heart’s a mess’ by gotye. oh this song is so close to my heart. so amazing live. so fucking beautiful. its beauty jusk flows throughout the music.

‘i’ve been thinking’ by cat power and the handsome boy modelling school. jazzy, sexy… i don’t know what else to say. except that cat power is sex personified and i want to be her.

‘pulse’ by the mess hall. thisone especially. and the music video is to die for. eerie and beautiful.

‘i’m alive’ by love and rockets. sexiness personified. a bit of that 80′s indie sound.

‘the pyramid song’ by radiohead. oh fuck this song is stunning, there is no other way to describe it. it elicits this intense emotional and physical response. very few aural pieces are capable of that. thom yorke is something special.the same for ‘talk show host’ (the one from Romeo+Juliet). that song sends chills through me. it eradicates the need for words, for thoughts. you just feel the song. the subtle passion. the longing that manifests.

I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
All the things I used to see
All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

I jumped into the river
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
And all the things I used to see
All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

‘amylase’ by cajun party. i love this little band and their indiepop?? music. it’s lovely and fun and pretty and a bit ugly in its way, in other songs.

‘maps’ by the yeah yeahs. i could listen to this song over and over and over.

‘love will tear us apart’ by joy division

anything by the smiths.

oddly enough, cinema strange, specifically ‘the red and silver fantastique’. kind of gothic, ambient, but strangely sexy. also partial to ‘lindsay’s trachea’

and of course of course, who could resist the non-english accents of the teenagers’ “homecoming”. ooh they are “totally awesome. oh my GOD, i think i’m in love.” such a brazen parody of typically sleazy englishmen (is that a real stereotype? sleazy french men yes. i think those gorgeous, fabulous french men are getting revenge for that particular stereotype). or at least ditzy american girls. and also “scarlett johansson”.

‘sexy boy’ by air

most things by air really. especially ‘run’. which i will always associate with veronica mars. also ‘playground love’, now that is a beautifully sexy ryhthm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQNv38pXXK8

I’m a high school lover, and you’re my favorite flavor
Love is all, all my soul
You’re my playground love

Yet my hands are shaking
I feel my body reeling
Time’s no matter, I’m on fire
On the playground love

You’re the piece of gold
That flashes on my soul
Extra time, on the ground
You’re my playground love

Anytime, anywhere,
You’re my playground love.

and the virgin suicides. amazing. i must read the book. the movie is amazing. i know everyone says it but really, it is just a lovely little movie.

so i’ve decided i have a bizarre idea of sexy. but then i’m also not the kind of girl who goes for tall, “hot”, blond, (vapid), typically attractive men. so this is not unexpected.