the people i know solely within the descriptions of others are very weak, weak characters indeed. as soon as my view of them is changed by someone giving me a different version, the way they look in my head also transforms. sometimes they become more beautiful, other times they begin to wither and perhaps contract the pox. all that i hold in my head of them are a bizarre collection of imaginings - and yet, what about the people i have met in person? their faces are made up of memories, near transparent stills layered by the millions, a portrait of time. and they are subject to the same transformations. subjectivity makes me a mite paranoid.

In other news... Amanda Palmer has written a play - The Onion Cellar.
I have expressed my reaction in the following:

Sydney is quite nice
There are ducks and sometimes bats
Boston is better

maybe i will write a play. maybe it will be about a wizard who harnesses the ocean currents caused by global warming to conjure an unspeakable evil. maybe i will blackmail my loved ones into contributing...
probably i will not. :)

goodnight!

i'm listening to Delta tap away on her piano. i'm watching spashley fan vids on youtube. i'm also watching the bones move underneath my skin when i type. i know that for all my analytical scepticism, i am a teenage girl at heart.
it's at the most unremarkable times such as now that i manage to feel overwhelmed by the incredibleness of life. i can't explain it, just sometimes... things feel absolutely perfect. almost like i can stand outside of it, amazed that i'm alive at all. i feel like i'll never get used to the world. it makes it very hard to worry about anything. UAI? pah. PAH.
at the same time, my delight in existence has meant that i'm not as passionately angry about things as i used to be. a necessary trade off, maybe. i can't help thinking there would be less to be angry about if more people relaxed, and took the afternoon off to read in the sun.
and i know that i sound like a sap. you see, i am a sap.

the last few days have been really nice... i spent yesterday afternoon at Jared's house, then stayed up late talking to Tim (Sophie's brother) on msn. i've just come back from Mona's 18th, where there was dancing and celebration, and now i'm going to draw for a while...
things are excellent.

ha! i found a blog post on my computer from the 18th of october. i'm going to post it here:

>>>>

This week has gone by in the proverbial flash. And overall, the past few days have been hardly stressful at all. I spent last Monday in Venue Music with my dad, playing several different guitars…
It ended up that I bought the first one that I bled on… Which sounds pretty rock and roll, but the truth is I’d cut my finger making a sandwich about half an hour before leaving the house. Still.

On Thursday I saw Jared, which made the ‘C seem hardly important. Or made me a lot more optimistic, at least.
On Saturday we set out to get the guitar, ended up with a flat battery in the middle of the city, and I bought some peach flavoured ice-tea.
On Sunday my grandmother told me that she knew I’d do well in the exams, but that she’d love me anyway if I didn’t… (yay)
I skipped a night of sleep on Monday, hoping that it might help me kick the inevitably renewed 2am – 10am sleeping pattern, and so gained the goodness of a disc of Buffy and a completed ’Truth essay. The sleeping situation however remains dire.
And the highlight… Last night my sister and I jammed in the style of something like dada-folk. Without giving in to the temptation of hyperbole, it was akin to the musical realisation of god.

And today I have studied. Which has been alright, even f i haven't quite managed the copious amount that I’d imagined magically being able to do. And in general things have been nice, apart from my having to adopt “don’t be psychotic” as a mantra.
Hmmm.

>>>>

i'm also going to post some of my spam poems. i'm now receiveing over 1000 spam emails a month, most of them full of randomised text in order to fool the filters. it reads like the subconscious of the internet. which explains all the sex. anyway here they are in the form of verse:

With her foot in a washbasin
She said, “Rance Belmont.
He wants your info,
And hot face.”
And so I shot him

In the week following the hurricane,
All I could see was
Scenes of misery, screaming,
Cheering, adoring fans.
I also made up some roasted carrots.

I remember
Da in the rocking chair
With his other clothes on,
Telling us
Coded Government secrets:
“The biscuits need attending to”;
“Young Slut so pulchritudinous”

Dead monsters
Enjoy the world.
Regards,
El Diablo


they are presents. to make up for my lack of posting. (they will also make my name).
it usually happens that i do a lot more reflection when my internet connection is experiencing shyness. right now i have no excuse not to blog, because my keyboard has been replaced and i've actually been doing things that are worth remembering. at least in the short term.
unexcitingly enough, the first among them has been the hours upon hours of each day that i spend downloading and subsequently watching tv episodes: firefly, studio 60, and most recently, south of nowhere - a mediocre american teen drama focusing on two pretty girls who fall in love. which is my favourite thing ever. oh, and principal snider makes a guest appearance as the terrifying sexual orientation specialist.
my aunt and i have also fallen into obsession with queer as folk. i've been spending half my days at her place, which is cheating, in a way... because i have left my house, but only to stay inside all day in the house of someone else.
it sounds stupid, but watching shows about people who are gay is reassuring. mostly i think because you get to swap realities for a while, so that all of a sudden everyone in the world is happy loving whoever they love and fear is something that happens only in movies made for freaks who choose to live that way (but its ok because we don't let them get married). anyway. things are fine for me, so i can't let myself get overdramatic on the issue.

last night was jess w's 18th, which was great fun. i caught up with some people i haven't seen since the formal, was hugged by some of my favourite people, and talked to dave about the theatre. also, mintie and mia came to my house beforehand for joanna newsom tickets and stayed for a time, which made me glad.
usually at this hour i would be reading my emails. or failing that, reading my spam emails.

speech day is tomorrow. a reminder of the timetabled life. BLEH. i should go to rest.

i've been listening to Broken Social Scene mostly non-stop over the last week. and yes, i'm aware that i'm behind in realising how great a band they are. the only problem at the moment is that i have to hold my head at a weird angle for both my earphones to work. so hopefully i don't end up with a hideous neck pain that i forever associate with canadian indie rock.

as for the ostensible function of this blog:
today i woke up at 3 (in the noon of the after). i watched the cricket, and jeered (politely) at the motherland. i gave my (now appreciative sounding) guitar a new set of strings, and i went to see Borat with my parents (hilarious). so ends another day.
as point of interest, for some reason the veins in my hands are unnervingly pronounced.

goodnight!

Summer in the City

i am sitting at the laptop typing this, because my wireless keyboard is much too efficient to actually work. but i've got the computer on right next to it, so that i can listen to my music without hassle and read my bookmarked fanfics. i like the way the laptop warms up my palms with all the energy it is expending. sick? strange? who knows, maybe i'll go and look up some videos of oil fields burning pretty and red. it will take up some of my expansive free time. (i am also too efficent to work. today, at least.)

i had my teacher scholarship interview today (drama/ english). the people of Blacktown are a very kind folk - taking the time to point me back and forth in various directions, and complain along with me at the reprehensible lack of signage. one woman offered me some of her hot chips. i then sat in a waiting-hallway for a while with another applicant by the name of Amy, wondering if we were being monitored, and that this was actually the test. the elevators seemed in a continuous, pointless exchange of suited government workers, like some kind of absurdist play. i wondered if there were cameras. i wondered if talking about how to successfully lockdown and gas an underground train station while simultaneously downloading music would create some kind of reaction. i wondered if Amy was gay, before being collected for the interview... which i thought went quite well. at least, i've never sustained such enthusiasm in that kind of situation before.
this evening i watched The City of Lost Children. i now feel like i've had my fix of dreams for tonight. very pretty film. then i watched rage for a couple of hours, which is something i haven't done in ages. i don't know why i haven't.
in other news, my plans for tomorrow have been thwarted, so i'll have to concieve of something amazing to do instead. maybe see how long i can play my guitars for before my fingers and/or ears start to bleed. :)
i've got to start waking up earlier. the hours between 11pm and 4am becomes a period of nothingness, where i can't seem to feel time passing. in contrast, waking up at midday always feels like the day (not just the daylight) has been significantly shortened. hm!

goodnight

ok. two people in the last two days have accused me of only being in music-love with bands that have strong female vocalists. and granted, i couldn't actually think of many bands to counter that satement on the spot...
SO here is a list of the man-voiced bands that i adore: Elliot Smith, Powderfinger, Radiohead, Interpol, David Bowie, The Cure, U2, Jeff Buckley, and Final Fantasy.
there are thousands of millions of others that i greatly like.

apart from defending my open minded music taste, today i visited the old alma mater to officially sign out. some teachers greeted me with warm welcomes, others told me jokingly to get a life. it's what all the cool kids are doing apparently. i saw ms. debourg leading her tiny sinners toward the library with her bellowingly righteous voice. it's nice to know that some things will stay nice and familiar. or maybe it's just nice to know that others will suffer as we were made to, because the knowlege that everything will inevitably change is more often than not a consolation.

afterward, i visited mintie. he gave me ginger beer and korean pop! i also saw rishi, which was a bonus. AND rishi gave me a swiss health candy. double bonus. the evening was nice as well - sophie came over to collect monies and show me lots of youtube videos. pretty ones.

ones of final fantasy covering joanna newsom.

kind of spectacular.

goodnight

(7 on a scale of dead to breathing)

We’ve begun to settle into the new house, though we still don’t have a phone or internet connection. I continue to neglect study and organisation.
There are only two days of school left. My response is fairly standard – excitement confused with nostalgia. I’ll miss Hornsby.
I had a quart of blood taken out of my arm yesterday. On the way to the clinic I had a conversation with my mum about how it is movies and tv create such a nice sense of control in people. That’s why my dad and I are so into Buffy. Along with the quality wit and pretty girls who are sometimes gay, it provides the experience of danger in a manageable atmosphere. We attempted to decide whether Buffy operates as a third level sign – separating our reality from a reality of constant threat in order that while watching we feel increasingly safe in our own non-buffy world (when in fact the world is full of stupid intangible pain). So we then talked about reality construction for a while, before agreeing that we have both remained godless because all institutions are so infuriatingly parochial.
I love my mum.
Last night was Alyssa’s under the sea party, which was really nice. There was more of a D and M atmosphere than I’ve experienced in a while. And punch.
I’m going to finish sorting out my room today. My mum has tried to make my mattress more bedlike by putting another two mattresses on top of it. I’m half expecting someone to put peas underneath me while I sleep in order to find out whether I’m marriable.

Today has been a relatively good day. In fact, relative to the last couple of days, today was fantastic. Alyssa, Helen and I got angry about politics for a while in English, we played drama games in drama (hilarity and cultural stereotypes ensued), and I was able to come home early to the remainder of Buffy season 5.
I’ve now watched a season and a half in a week. I’ll probably finish the series by the HSC. Jenny advised me against ever trying any hard drugs.

Today I also started my reinvigoration regime, wherein I walk away my incapacitating weariness. I went to the place where the city looks like a toy, marvelled at the sunset, then wandered home and ticked off my health boxes.

I also wrote a haiku:

Walking in circles
Come, come, adrenalin, come!
Forehead is bleeding.

I should write about Saturday night, but to be cliché, words cannot closely express it. It was surreal, and at the same time made me feel incredibly, tangibly alive. The climax of surreal-ness was probably Bad Habit, because it was the first Dresden Dolls song I listened to, and the song that made me first fall in love with them all those years ago.
Experiences like that – music, art, sunsets – make me feel connected to something stronger than my own fragile existence. I like it. For one, it makes not writing practice essays less of a tragedy.
I managed to do the obsessive fan thing after the concert: I hung around and met Amanda Palmer. I shook her hand and told her that she’d changed my life.
I could have been a lot creepier. I am creepy when it comes to The Dresden Dolls. I love them.

And I love you! (most probably)

Night!

Conquering trial exams two by two – hurrah, hurrah.

1. I’ve been kind of moody of late. I must make it stop. Or get pregnant, so that I at least have an excuse. The HSC can only be blamed for so many things.

2. I’ve been wondering whether personal fulfilment is directly proportionate to the amount of Buffy one watches.

3. 1 MONTH AND 1 DAY UNTIL I MEET MY DESTINY/ THE DRESDEN DOLLS.

4. I love everyone, and i miss them.

i went to school today. i wouldn't bother mentioning the fact if it hadn't become a little rare in my day to day pattern.

in other news, 1. i've decided that i finally understand the whole noumena/phenomena thing. it happened on the train yesterday, while i was looking at a yellow door.
2. my favourite song at the moment is "police and the private" by Metric. it is nice. the rest of the album is heartbreakingly mediocre.

i started working on extension 2 again today, and have decided that i'll get a lot done this evening. however, after reading about crash (the J.G. Ballard one), i'm tempted to change my entire work. i'm sure it's just because i'm in a post-human kind of mood. (is that possible?.)

at the same time, i wrote a poemy-thing that i'm sure i'll hate tomorrow. right now, i like it, but not for any reason in particular.


For the excusing
(from life)
Not the punishing,
I’m keeping
What I learned
From the light.

No one will see,
Until I find
(Huddled and kept)
What I wept over,
Pickled and wet
For the future.

i think about the only entity that i haven't complained to about my current scholastic imbroglio is the internet community. so here we are. despite the fact that the only person who reads this is my beloved.

today i had to finish writing the extension 2 report and type out all my modern notes.
from 11 - 1 i typed up our group script. from 3 - 6:30, then 7:30 - 9:30 i worked on my film, and from 9:30 - 10:30 i tampered with my draft. for the last hour i've played "five little speckled frogs" on the elctric guitar.
so, there is not much left of today, and i still have one and a half tasks to write, despite having ostensibly worked all day. hmm.

you know i want to be a rock star, don't you rach? the HSC don't matter. neither does grammar, when you are a rock star. i'm going to pioneer a new music genre that encapsulates the feeling of knowing a million pointless things, and having to regurgitate them to the point where it all seems to mean the same thing. all my songs will sound like "five little speckled frogs", and all my songs will be brilliant. the debut album will feature me being eaten by a stalk.

sigh.

bovie says goodnight~

Simply because i myself was curious to see what bands would be in my top ten...

Favourite Artists:

1. The Dresden Dolls
2. Vivaldi
3. Metric
4. Radiohead
5. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
6. Powderfinger
7. Bjork
8. Alanis Morissette
9. The Red Hot Chili Peppers
10. Ani Difranco

Another, with more colour!



I'm thinking of drawing some that are less obscure, in the next few weeks.

Here we go!

Daylight Savings


An so this blog becomes once again an outlet for my... procrastination.

title: my evening - instead of an essay on context.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A brush with inspiration
Gives away to drawn out thought
Wherein careful calculation
Precedes over what ought

A collection of anxieties,
Kept in case of an emergency,
Emerge as quiet cautious strokes
Begin to justify their apathy

A hand blurs beneath the rush,
Tracing smaller all that comes
Until the world is little enough
To sit above, and command my arms

From there it whispers,
Almost in whimpers,
That it’s too much mine
To be anyone else’s –

All my works are a stencil
Only sharp through a lens
I blame the blunt of the pencil
And leave pretence to make amends

meh. i've decided to turn this into a half-normal blog, for the sake of getting SOME writing done, albeit lamezors.
i'm still in post-examen joy, hopefully it will extend into Tuesday at least. Yesterday, between 3:50 and 7:30 was great. Today i woke up and organised my schoolwork, started some extension two, fiddled around with the MIDI device in the vain hope that i might begin recording some songs today, and upon its stupid stupidness decided instead to catch up on Questionable Content whilst listening to bloc party. when the day comes that i once again care nought about the horrors of perpetual debt, i'll get to some more live music. or forget about the world. they amount to the same.
although it's nice now, i feel almost horrible that my moods are dictated by school. i seem to have finally decided that it's important, but it's so numbing. what i like less is that there has to be the trade-off between feeling in touch with what i would tentatively think of as true, and pursuing a life that adheres to it. what made me feel like i didn't exist before was the fact that i always seem to interpret my position in such paradoxical terms. That’s what I was on about with the writhing worms post last year, Rach, if you remember. I suppose it makes sense that paradox is inevitable in our situation. For any thought to be verified, it must be thought to be true, and so on. So, this age where we destabilise truth --> destabilisation of thought --> destabilisation of identity, also, of logic --> madness --> Cakeocracy, wherein carbohydrates subjugate nations and collective humanity’s threadbare reality justifies survival based solely on devouring concepts. *eats a scone to celebrate the rise of all-resolving Paradoxism/ anti-Atkinsism*. hmm! Some thought for food...

afternoon

well, here's one of the fragments that might make more sense than any of the others :). it follows on from what i first posted.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Awake… my eyes leap open and almost fall out. I blink widely. Something about something red…
“Awake are you, Stella?” A familiar tattoo sounds at the doorway and I groan an assent, pulling myself out of bed and whispering appreciation for a long-standing habit of falling asleep fully clothed. I face him at the door.
“Good – seems you artists don’t know night from day, I swear. I said I was coming around today”
“I remember. You know, it’s hard to tell night from day with that light”
“Hah, the dinge of creativity, eh”. I wait for the self-satisfied little laugh, though not bitterly. With luck I’ll be gone soon. “You’ll be gone soon, anyway. Eh? I’ve got the lease here,” He stares at me with tired eyes. I’ve never asked his age, though I suppose it to lounge at around forty-nine, an estimation mostly based on the fact that he talks to me as though I’m wearing a frilly dress with gigantic polka dots. “do you know where you’re going yet?”
“Maybe Melbourne. I just need something to inspire me, you know?”
He answers quietly with his eyebrows, reminding me that my fantastic escape from listlessness probably seems instead fantastically mad. Perhaps it is. I’ve been alone with that cockroach too long.
“What is it that you paint?” He asks, casting an eye to the canvass.
“Landscapes, mostly.” There are a dozen postcards and photographs of various places, dusty outbacks to metropolitan outlines, tacked about my newest of artistic endeavours. Some of them have been sent halfway across Australia, I think enviously to myself.

* * *

Stupid universe.
Stack stack stack.
Stupid lonesomeness.
Stack stack stack.
There has to be something nicer and warmer than vexatious infinity.

* * *

A month passes slowly when you’re counting down to something. I’ve spent the last three days of it economising my belongings – deciding what I do and don’t need. Since childhood my process of deciding such things has been to place myself in a desert, and from there decide what I could live without. This seems particularly appropriate now that I head forth into the red centre of Australia. I’ve now divided my belongings across three looming bedroom corners; one for storage, one for getting rid of, and one to take with me.

In the first pile: a table, chairs (etc)

In the second pile: two thirds of my clothes, a quaint little toy piano that I found at the market, a garden gnome, some prints (etc)

And finally, the third: clothes, camera, easel, brushes, bandaids (etc)

The train is tedious as always, rattling on methodically as a fanatic preacher. The blueness and the brightness of the sky outside plays off the small open window that rests parallel to my knees. I once had a friend who told me they’d love me forever if I taught them to fly. I think of them now, as I stare at my knees in the sky, and I wish I had a welding torch so I could take the window and the moment with me instead of having the two remain glued to side of these cycling carriages forever.
It’s tremendously difficult to draw people on the train, not because the page moves about, but because the people do. Either that or they stare at you suspiciously, almost daring you to lower your Progresso to the page once more. My quiet revenge is later filling in whatever amount of form they deprived me of with that of a lizard. Silly lizard people.
A woman to my far right clutches a fly net in one hand and a cigarette in the other, tapping the cylinder irritably against a pile of papers now and again, probably asking things like what has the law ever done for me? And so anarchism is born, I muse.

I find myself being jostled into slumber, and scramble for puzzles in order to keep myself awake. I finish a crossword and move onto god, which seems to develop into a kind of soul searching interview, the train carriage becoming an elaborate Orpheum as red warmth beams down from a billion windows camouflaged by light. A voice behind a curtain speaks to me in twisted middle English.
Godhede: well well.
Stella: no purpose for the visit.
Godhede: I see. No one likes to be drawn. Foolish abasshen folk, yours.
Stella: they what?
Godhede: fool of a creation!
Stella: ... apologies.
Godhede: that be god.
Stella: [sighs]. Apologies, God.
Godhede: [pauses]. You know, I hate this vexatious curtain.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

night

(i don't know about the middle enlgish, i simply need something stylistic and appropriate to differentiate god from the others.)

(This is not part of the major work... when I have the urge to write in third person i'll continue writing this... )

>>>>>>>>

There’s no one at home. The niece is away on a music camp of sorts – the kind where an absence is noticed but not noted, where the goodbyes are appropriate, but not the meaning it. I suppose he loved her, but it didn’t really seem so at the time. Anyway, the girl was having an enjoyable enough existence regardless – she began to think of herself as an investment, of which the camp was a part of and to which few others would be participant. She breathed in, pleased that no one had yet reprimanded her for disappearing so often to the estuary, often an oboe or a boy in hand . The wind rustled through the reeds there, rather than screamed like it did through those of the new players.
The girlfriend, the little woman, or “Therese” as she would probably prefer to be introduced, isn’t around. Joseph notices a particularly tattered pink book out of the corner of his eye and flicks to the front page –
“Name your baby. Published in 1984”. He would prefer to say it than write it, and write it than think it, but sometimes there was no say in the matter.
Born in 1985, Joseph likes the what if. He pictures the chemical composition momentarily suspended above page 34, a predilection of which he was in part the product, and imagines it shifting slightly. It instead takes a liking to
[He writes down the name Finn.]
Joseph, who could have been Finn, also used to write down dates, and pretend they were the end of the world. Or to be precise, one date, again and again, in the back of every journal that was ever kept, the fading pencil tracing an ever sharpening peril: 16th September 2071. When the innocuous curves finally translated to reality, Joseph would drive off a cliff. Death, he figures, is a certain enough thing to believe in.
“Mm!” he remembers, picking up the pencil again:
Must Get License.

“I like the sounds here” she says.
“It’s nice”
“Except the insects”
Lily pokes the new boy’s head, separating the strands of hair from the sand, the two almost indistinguishable in colour. They laugh, not quite nervously. Dusting her hand on her pocket, Lily notices a threadbare red ribbon caught in the zipper. She ties it around his forehead, in anticipation of a wound. The reaction is quizzical, but the glimmer of a riddle in his eyes is so reflective of the sky that Lily can almost gaze straight through his head. And, she thinks, as though the rest of him were barely there either, the wind takes his newest of decorations. The pair watch the ribbon fold effortlessly into a laced curtain of blue.
“That was kind of cool” he says finally.

Things have been more intense today than any other day I’ve had in a while. Hopefully today will therefore act to reassure my belief in the superpowers of sleep, though it's also brought me tot hat stage of night where I really enjoy listening to Tatu. I like them. Gah... if only being gay was so contagiously tragic.
I've done a little bit of writing for my major work, but this post is mostly so that Rachael doesn't stop visiting the page. i was planning to turn this into one of the horrible late-night ramblings that i used to write for my “national-socialist” Russian of a net buddy to snigger at before getting me to rate the hotness of various girls, but i won't. i'm going to go to sleep, and pull together my ghastly ext2 fragments tomorrow from 2ish onward. hmmm

night

well... it seems having an afternoon nap means i don't get tired all night afterward. which might be terrible, but it has meant that i have made a pretty blog, of which i might be proud. this will be mostly postings of what i'm writing for extension two english - the background is a photo of my actual logbook! how clever! :)

sleep well!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A masochistic mahogany cockroach charging at the wall and a lifeless brush in my right hand battle for concern. The insect’s disgusting thorax beats ecstatically against the ceiling now, possessed by some ill-fitted light – the dinge of creativity, the landlord laughs, every time I mention it. It’s not all so bad. I don’t mean the direction of my life is in darkness, or something. Though I suppose everyone’s is. I like to think of it like those spiky sticks that used to fall around my front garden when I was younger, the sticks that I would spend hours breaking and reassembling when devastatingly bored. There would be only two identical parts, but I could make them draw upward falsely forever through stacking and stacking. Then I would paint them orange and stick googly eyes on them or something. But that’s how I see myself living one stage to the next – stacking in mid air. And I with my grubby fingers was god.

I turn off the light and imagine the cockroach drop from the buzz of my light bulb and fall against the skirting board, scuttling into some forgotten stria, and clacking. I close my eyes for the warmer kind of darkness – the darkness of circling mystery, before again opening my eyes to a clacking threat and instinctively switching the light back on. So, it seems the cockroach wins the battle for my concern. I eventually get bored of caring that I might never find inspiration again, and fall asleep.

* * *

A dragon. An exhilarating ride through something cavernous and ancient, until this thing that I ride breaks through the surface and follows instead the caverns of a prehistory, seeming to see the rock that existed high up here before the wind and rain rendered it sky. I don’t know where I am, but I propel the beast forward into this confusing blue. Finally we stop, and if I look down I can see a trails of where we’ve been, translucently spiralling just over a small town and a vast warm red.

* * *

Awake… my eyes leap open and almost fall out. I blink widely.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

more to come... *withdraws ominously*