Talking to is also touching.
With hands wandering over you.
- Paul Celan

My friend Robbie lent me two books. Platform, by Michel Houllebecq, and a collection of Paul Celan's poetry and letters. The juxtaposition of the two is infuriating and exciting - I love that Robbie gave me both at the same time. He has a certain double quality reflected in his tastes and recommendations. Platform is incredibly well-written in a kind of po-mo 'destruction of all things' kind of way. That said, it is a fluid and fascinating read, a novel punctuated with gorgeously sardonic and rather revealing quotes about the human condition. I am simultaneously infuriated by it and comforted. And then there is Celan; a thorough modernist writer committed to a classic vision of love - its agonies and its redeeming qualities. Sex in two ways, in two styles. I go back and forth between wanting sex to be casual, pornographic, instinctually, and sex as something lovely and warm, like a milky-hued painting or foggy, moist morning. Neither is the truth about sex; it hangs in the balance.

(I got some hate mail last week. Unfortunately I was drunk and it was immediately after a physical altercation broke out between two men (because of me). So being told to "fuck off and die" and that I "create problems in my life because I am bored" just reaffirmed the already-present negative feelings floating around in myself at the time. Fortunately, though, the boys I was drinking with laughed it off and reminded me that it's "just the internet." That said, I think that sending anonymous hate mail to people is one of the most cowardly things to do. It's rather embarrassing for the sender. So, whoever you are, fuck off. I have enough self-loathing to last me a while, I don't need assholes who don't know my situation to send me hateful comments.)