tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16149592523308004392024-03-21T21:12:17.971-04:00voices escapeKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-36629306939258729332014-04-04T23:07:00.000-04:002014-04-04T23:07:42.215-04:00<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer500582002"><span id="freeText5179037122275254266">When I was in high school, I used to frequent the used bookstores in my hometown and pick out books at random to take home. This process began with me, a guilt-ridden fourteen-year-old, warily sifting through romance novels, stacks upon stacks of them, with that delicious old book smell seeping from stained and cracked spines. I learned that if I let the books sit, resting half-open on my thighs for a moment, the pages would eventually lean open to reveal the dirtiest passages, the pages that were most marked and passed over,</span></span><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer500582002"><span id="freeText5179037122275254266"><span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer500582002"><span id="freeText5179037122275254266"> as though the books themselves were complicit and eager to share the secret desires of women locked in bedrooms. I learned words</span></span> like "throbbing" and "tumescent" and, though giggling uncomfortably, would still take them home, the rose-pink dust jackets leaving my fingers gritty with dust. </span></span><br />
<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer500582002"><span id="freeText5179037122275254266">World weary and intense teenager that I was, I progressed quickly from used copies of harlequin romances to Stephen King to Camus to Nietzsche, and I have only recently re-discovered the joys of a good smutty novel. </span></span><br />
<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer500582002"><span id="freeText5179037122275254266">St. Catharines used to have some epic bookstores, and so did Toronto - many of which have closed. But one of the books I picked up as a 16-year-old was Anne Carson's <i>Beauty of the Husband</i>, which struck me in an intense way at the time but evoked a lot of things I didn't understand until years later. Anne Carson is good. Super good. Healing words. She has been a consistent influence. These quotes are from her book <i>Eros the Bittersweet</i>, a text that I have been revisiting lately.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer500582002"><span id="freeText5179037122275254266">"Infants
begin to see by noticing the edges of things. How do they know an edge
is an edge? By passionately wanting it not to be. The experience of eros
as lack alerts a person to the boundaries of himself, of other people,
of things in general.<br /><br />If we follow the trajectory of eros we
consistently find it tracing out this same route: it moves out from the
lover toward the beloved, then ricochets back to the lover himself and
the hole in him, unnoticed before. Who is the real subject of most love
poems? Not the beloved. It is that hole." <br /><br />"When I desire you a
part of me is gone: my want of you partakes of me. The presence of want
awakens in him nostalgia for wholeness. His thought turn toward question
of personal identity: he must recover and reincorporate what is gone if
he is to be a complete person."<br /><br />"Where does that hole come from? It comes from the lover's classificatory process. Desire for an object that <em>he never knew he lacked</em>
is defined, by a shift of distance, as desire for a necessary part of
himself. Not a new acquisition but something that was always, properly, <em>his</em>. Two lacks become one."<br /><br />"The
recognition calls into play various tactic of triangulation, various
ways of keeping the space of desire open and electric. To think about
one's own tactics is always a tricky business."<br /></span></span>Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-58977270812777469752014-04-03T02:59:00.001-04:002014-04-03T02:59:54.004-04:00I've been thinking a lot of desiring machines recently. I go to Deleuze and Guattari like I used to go to the Bible; every time I read Thousand Plateaus it feels like I just took a long bath, nothing is better. Maybe Jeff Buckley.<br />
<br />Anyways. They basically reconceptualize desire so that instead of it being about lack (in the psychoanalytic sense) desire is productive; desire forms a series of circuits, assemblages, inter-connected flows. I love this image. It comes to mind during the first few days of spring in Toronto, when everyone feels connected. The air is electric. People move differently. Whereas subway rides in the winter are quite possibly the most depressing activity possible in this city, particularly at rush hour, everyone breaks open a little bit when it gets warm. Bodies jostle, people maintain eye contact a little longer than necessary, jackets are unzipped. Desire pulses between people. Not (only) sexual desire, but a sense of affinity, a desire for closeness, to know rather than consume the other.<br />I feel that I lack the ability to cut those desiring lines. I feel like my desire is messy and chaotic. I feel that desire is messy for most people but that maybe some are better at cutting off connections to others and letting the wounds heal so that what is left doesn't continue reaching for what is gone. As much as I love D&G and believe that their theory of desiring machines is pretty great and true, it is also a profoundly depressing theory when your desire is out-of-bounds, when the reaching is not productive but only points out the impossibility of that desire ever reaching what it is directed towards. I certainly relate to the theory of desire as circulating, but I feel that my desire is, very frequently, only circulating around me and the un-tidy, prematurely chopped-off connections I had to people who are now out-of-bounds. Someone once told me that they hate looking into the faces of someone they once loved, someone who, at one point, they couldn't imagine not knowing and caring about, and then realizing that that feeling is no longer there. Maybe in that moment of (mis)recognition, what is being mourned is the desire itself, not the person.<br /><br />
I think if Deleuze was here and/or if I could have a beer with Guattari they would just tell me that I am still thinking of desire in terms of lack, as a negative term - a reaching out towards what I, myself, do not possess (humans want what we can't have!). Desire in their model is uncoupled from the individual ego - it becomes a circulating affect within an assemblage that exceeds the individual. But realistically, desire is tricky. Because as much as desire is productive, it also involves rejection, missed connections, <i>missing people all over the place</i>, god, I wish I could excise people from my brain. I am positioned at the median, oscillating between desiring-production and desire as lack. I'm just looking for distractions.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-26029530632847164332014-04-01T23:29:00.001-04:002014-04-01T23:29:49.739-04:00Boy Crazy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Serious love for Sons of Anarchy right now.</div>
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And feeling better.</div>
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<a href="http://www.jackguy.com/index.php#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=4&p=3&a=0&at=0" target="_blank">Photo</a></div>
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-86377991976651543942014-03-30T12:42:00.002-04:002014-03-30T12:42:51.788-04:00The thing about anxiety is that you can't reason or think your way out of it. My chest feels like it is full of rocks, I am having trouble breathing, my palms are sweaty, and I keep retching up nothing - it is like my body wants to get rid of whatever it is that is holding me back from being a successful human being, that feeling of heaviness deep in my back, the one that makes it hard to get out of bed or open the Judith Butler, the one that makes it hard to eat. I keep forgetting to eat.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure why I'm so anxious recently. One of my comprehensive papers is due tomorrow (I just answered my question, probably, but my anxiety is more than that, it is about other things I don't want to talk about) and I keep reading and re-reading it, feeling incapable of synthesizing my ideas into lucid prose, words that make sense of what other people have been writing for the last 200 years. Writing a field paper feels like such a futile exercise, I just want everything to line up beautifully and for the connections to reveal themselves in my words but, unfortunately, cultural theory doesn't allow that, cultural theory is a tricky bitch. <br />
<br />
When I am this anxious about life it manifests itself in imaginings, thoroughly unproductive fantasies; my mind lingers to people it shouldn't, I invent things and looks and desires to make myself feel better, when, realistically, no one is out there giving a shit. Or maybe the anxiety is a result of those fantasies? I don't know. I understand how self-centered I sound but if you can't be self-centered on a blog where can you. I am having trouble being an adult, and will instead curl up in bed and watch Sons of Anarchy and let my cat roll up in my hair and wait for the dizziness to pass. <br />
<br />
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-70623483754230414312013-09-22T19:45:00.003-04:002013-09-22T19:45:58.929-04:00<blockquote>
Too much to drink last night and now<br />the symbol claps of shame in August.<br />Had I been wine-wise, I’d<br />have been at work for hours by now,<br />but no. Television is more relieving<br />than I’d guessed, I watched a show<br />I’d never seen before because I tend<br />from terrors on the molestation line.<br />It was easier to take than TV news<br />whose theme today is also how someone<br />who had once been a girl had been<br />abused. Outside the sky is blue<br />and bright white clouds remind me<br />that the other news has been wildfires<br />in California, with pyrocumulus<br />soot clouds rising white in the blue sky.<br />This shame of too much drink is<br />shockingly tenacious. I tell myself<br />it is no crime to be seen in cups now<br />and again, but find I can’t<br />be disabused. I hold it all against me. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
There must be water in these clouds<br />though, and freedom here, and nothing<br />that ever happened will happen again.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
—<a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/08/25/poem-episode/" target="_blank">Jennifer Michael Hecht, “Episode”</a><br />
</blockquote>
Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-53866843293783947912013-08-30T10:56:00.002-04:002013-08-30T10:56:21.931-04:00<span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: black;">Blackberry Picking</span></span></strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: black;">Late August, given heavy rain and sun<br />
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.<br />
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot<br />
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.<br />
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet<br />
like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it<br />
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for<br />
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger<br />
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots<br />
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.<br />
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills<br />
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,<br />
until the tinkling bottom had been covered<br />
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned<br />
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered<br />
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.<br />
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.<br />
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,<br />
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.<br />
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush<br />
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.<br />
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair<br />
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.<br />
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: black;">by Seamus Heaney </span></span></span>Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-67009042455444567112013-08-29T17:25:00.002-04:002013-08-29T17:25:44.729-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
1. <a href="http://bastienneschmidt.com/project.cfm?id=13" target="_blank">Bastienne Schmidt</a><br />
2. Edward HopperKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-79110219702011079862013-08-27T00:28:00.002-04:002013-08-27T00:28:19.669-04:00there are things you refuse to think about<br />streets that are too raw for your perusal.<br />you wind through them like your feet are fingers through pages,<br />moist to the touch.<br />I cannot be that for you: the one who points the way.<br />
who colours corners as you navigate shady sidewalks.<br />instead i am the compiler who thinks of witty retorts only after you are gone from me. i think, "what would you do if i opened my mouth against your collarbone, breathing there to warm you?" <br />you are always closed against my forceful unfurling.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-84651457397833140762013-08-25T19:01:00.001-04:002013-08-25T19:01:13.650-04:00Living and Lying<blockquote>
"The worst thing you do when you think is lie — you can
make up reasons that are not true for the things that you did, and what
you’re trying to do as a creative person is surprise yourself — find out
who you really are, and try not to lie, try to tell the truth all the
time. And the only way to do this is by being very active and very
emotional, and get it out of yourself — making things that you hate and
things that you love, you write about these then, intensely. When it’s
over, then you can think about it; then you can look, it works or it
doesn’t work, something is missing here. And, if something is missing,
then you go back and reemotionalize that part, so it’s all of a piece. <br />
But thinking is to be a corrective in our life — it’s not supposed to be a center of our life. <em>Living</em> is supposed to be the center of our life, <em>being</em>
is supposed to be the center — with correctives around, which hold us
like the skin holds our blood and our flesh in. But our skin is not a
way of life — the way of living is the blood pumping through our veins,
the ability to sense and to feel and to know. And the intellect doesn’t
help you very much there — you should get on with the business of
living." </blockquote>
<blockquote>
- Ray Bradbury from <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/22/ray-bradbury-day-at-night-1974-interview/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer6567b&utm_medium=twitter" target="_blank">here </a></blockquote>
Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-9165866329494197132013-08-14T22:53:00.002-04:002013-08-14T22:53:52.042-04:00<h2 class="the-quote">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that
sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible
things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never
was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone
else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones
of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal
sunset of what we are.</span></span></h2>
<span style="font-size: small;">
— Fernando Pessoa </span>Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-52732795071755284432013-08-09T13:49:00.001-04:002013-08-09T13:49:33.770-04:00So, I found out a few days ago that a friend of mine killed himself. And I have been feeling horrible and sad and out of sorts since then. Each day involves waking up to my cat's urgent meows and head butts, rolling over to kiss my partner, basking in sun. And then comes the crushing realization that a friend is no longer here. A person who was so vibrant and fascinating and caring.<br />
I am horrible at staying in touch with people, and this was one of those people. The last time we spoke was a few months ago, and I haven't seen him since last summer. And I have guilt about that, even though I feel that feeling guilt after someone's death is such a waste of time, a way of making this horrible event about me, focusing on my pain instead of paying tribute to that person. So I am trying not to feel guilty and instead remember Carm in a way that he would have wanted.<br />
The first time I met him he was running around campus with no shirt and a guitar. Doing somersaults in the arts building. He ran up to me and told me: "you are delicious." He would interrupt professors in our philosophy classes. He would sing. He would quote Nietzsche and talk to me about getting out of the hospital, pulling release papers out of a ragged copy of Spinoza's Ethics. <br />
The last time I saw him, we meditated together for 40 minutes, then made a stir-fry out of tofu, fresh mushrooms, peppers, ginger and lemon grass from the farmer's market, sharing stories.<br />
I will miss you, and I am sorry that I wasn't more present in your life. Goodbye, Carm. xo<br />
Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-83652261564165382752013-01-01T23:25:00.001-05:002013-01-01T23:25:38.094-05:00Listening to a conversation between Neil Young and Patti Smith on the background, watching Tennant-era <i>Doctor Who</i>. My kitten Arie (no, not like the guy from <i>Entourage</i>, whom I wasn't aware of prior to naming my cat the Hebrew word for lion) is trying to sleep on the warm surface of my laptop but settles for my chest instead. I do not feel like a good academic. I am worried that I am not going to do enough. I can't stand academic writing anymore, either the obfuscated pretensions of theory or the simplifications of much of "cultural studies" - maybe my brain is just overloaded and I need a break, but I certainly don't feel adequate right now. I spent my holidays doing what I love to do, right now, which is knit, bake, craft, and read (for pleasure) and now I'm witnessing the obligatory facebook updates from colleagues informing everyone that they have prepared __ manuscripts for publication and in short, seem to have their shit together. I just want to read William Gibson and Jeff Vandermeer and stuff and not have to write papers.<br />
I think I'm just overworked. First world problems.<br />
<br />
Last night was good, though. We played Carcassonne and drank champagne and watched Arrested Development. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.<br />
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Also, things like this happen on a frequent basis:<br />
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<br />
So, life's good. Just confused as usual.<br />
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-30557045616744413532012-10-08T01:00:00.002-04:002012-10-08T01:00:42.530-04:00I have become remarkably good at zoning out, at least when I am in dire need of a good head space. Thanksgiving is such a gong show. I love my sister's voice and her high-pitched laugh. Driving in the dark and the sheen of your hair in the lamp lights. My cold fingers burnt on a mug of lemon tea. The pattern of puddles on a country road.<br />
<br />
I am reading Ulysses which is wonderful. My life is extremely busy. I have started by PhD work and it is so fun and fulfilling but overwhelming all at the same time. I work a lot during the day and the last few minutes before I fall asleep I read a few pages of Joyce, and the world clears up a little bit. Is it strange that I use Ulysses to clear my head? I will keep track of my favourite quotes and put them in a wallet so that on rainy days I can look at them and feel a little more peaceful.<br />
<br />
Happy thanksgiving.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-55802481649010534682012-08-16T15:57:00.000-04:002012-08-16T15:57:19.057-04:00On my disillusionment with graduate school.Things I have learned over my past two years in graduate school.<br />
<br />
1. Many people in supposedly more "radical" academic circles (radical = haha) think of themselves as extra special and unique butterflies, but they are also very defensive about appearing as such, and will use little self-deprecating "asides" to off-set the utter pretentiousness of 90% of what comes out of their mouths and/or what they shit on their screens. <br />
2. "Difference" is a theoretical buzzword rather than something actually appreciated in the very real goings-on of everyday life. This is a really interesting one. Because I can't count the amount of times I've witnessed 10 people in a graduate seminar lamenting the oppression of this or that marginalized group, who talk about Jean-Luc Nancy's "Experience of Freedom" or Derrida's democracy-to-come but then they will go out of their way to ostracize people who come from different theoretical, educational, or ideological backgrounds because they are not "smart enough." Oh, and they are usually too busy whining about shit and constructing delicate existential crises to actually engage in local politics of any kind.<br />
3. Academics are only interested in hanging out with/discoursing with those who either a) affirm what they already think is a correct [ideological or theoretical] position or b) challenge them in such a way that only superficially (i.e. theoretically rather than practically) "performs" difference without actually challenging the existing intellectual paradigm within which everyone comfortably floats. In other words, they'll theorize about the oppression of the working class but will turn up their noses at the very thought of listening or engaging with the working class, and if they do have a working class friend or a meaningful discussion with a construction worker in a bar, they'll fetishize and romanticize that discussion/individual all starry-eyed like they just did something good for the world.<br />
<br />
Of course not all academics/people are like this. I find this is mostly true of young-ish graduate students. I have been guilty of some of this behaviour myself, but am grateful to have a thoroughly unpretentious and down-to-earth and thoughtful partner and a small group of friends who keep me accountable. But all I have to say is: Barf. Hopefully the next stage of my academic career is less depressing.<br />
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-58277970846926827682012-08-02T00:52:00.001-04:002012-08-02T00:52:52.371-04:00Thesis is finally done. In an attempt to ease back into blogging, I'm going to be doing posts like this every once and a while, where I can share things that have been occupying my imaginative and creative headspace. These are things that have inspired me in the last few days.<br />
<br />“Our work of love should be to reclaim masculinity and not allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination. There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a non-dominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence."<br />
<br />
- Bell Hooks from The Will to Change (really digging this lady recently)<br />
<br />
“So yes<br />
I will gladly take on your ocean<br />
just to swim beneath you<br />
so I can kiss the bends of your knees<br />
in appreciation for the work they do<br />
keeping your head above water”<br />
<br />
- Mike McGee<em></em><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://home-trotter.blogspot.ca/2012/07/design-hotel-cocoa-island.html">Cocoa Island Hotel</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://designspiration.net/image/322163821358/"> Iain Macarthur.</a><br />
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<a href="http://highflyingadored.tumblr.com/post/8728294806/omfg"> Ideal writing/living/creating/sexing spot</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://1313.mx/obra/cadere-innocens/"> Kikyz1313</a><br />
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<a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/116460340334863172/">Dazed and Confused Oct.11 Photographed by Matt Stone.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://popculturepirate.com/2012/08/01/does-feminism-have-a-glass-ceiling/">Does Feminism Have a Glass Ceiling?</a><br />
Interesting, problematic. <br />
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2012/08/01/the-gender-trap-part-2-1/">The Gender Trap pt. 2.</a><br />
(Gotta love the CBC. Its become a kind of tradition for myself and my partner when we're driving. We're basically like old people.)<br />
<a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/07/25/olympic-weightlifter-zoe-smith-isnt-interested-in-your-bullshit/">Zoe Smith being a badass lady fighter.</a><br />
I care not for the Olympics but think this lady is awesome.<br />
<a href="http://manboobz.com/2012/07/29/the-thinking-housewife-tries-to-tarnish-the-legacy-of-sally-ride-with-a-surreally-homophobic-eulogy/">The Thinking Housewife tries to tarnish the legacy of Sally Ride with a surrealy homophobic eulogy.</a><br />
David Futrelle's usual brand of cutting critique. I love this man.<br />
<br />
Oh and my <a href="http://pinterest.com/kristen_shaw/">pinterest is here</a> if you have any desire to check it out/follow.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-58202507067325566592012-07-22T18:44:00.001-04:002012-07-22T18:44:35.315-04:00Writing a 120 page thesis takes the wind out of me. And the brain power. But this whole sometimes-tedious experience has also given me something. Mainly, more confidence. A better awareness of what it means (and doesn't mean) to be that fearful something called "AN ACADEMIC." I will never be an academic as much as I will be someone who needs theory and poetry and literature to live. I'll spend my life writing if it means I can do what I love.<br />
But I also love working out, and feeling the muscles in my legs ache after a session. And I love cooking, the saturation of smells, the satisfaction in completing something in less than an hour (there is joy in that, given the tedious hours I spend writing) and fueling my body. I love making things. It is such a cliche, too, the philosopher who retreats into wood-working. I have discovered a new joy in being embodied, in feeling my body move, and in being outside of my mind. And if I am, in fact, an "academic," I am also a myriad of other things. <br />
I have entered one of those spaces, again, of peaceful isolation. Realizing who matters and learning how to be okay with letting those others - those others that don't - go. Of course its melancholic. Of course its nostalgic. But the intensity I used to have and cherish so much, the intensity that, only a year or two ago, I realized was mostly artificial and contrived, has ebbed away so that a different type of intensity remains. I don't want or need to prove myself anymore. Letting that fierce girl go means letting go of the people who loved <i>that</i>, but never me. In the meantime I have discovered new relationships that matter more. <br />
Why not blog? Why blog now? I suppose I am winding down. I hate blogging, even though I subscribe to about 300. After being slapped on the wrist with a little bit of hate-mail I realized the implications of writing about personal things on the internet. Blogging feels very self-indulgent. Guilty as charged, I guess. My creative drive - along with the depression and anxiety that fueled all that "poetic angst" - has been siphoned off into other pursuits. I feel the weight of being in my mid-20s. Not that my awareness is tinged with a fear of getting older, or of "aging" in any sense. Its more or less a startling new awareness of just how fast time goes, how much living matters.<br />
I know sincerity tinged with sentimentalism isn't "cool" or common, especially in the blog world. I'm not sorry about it, though.<br />
xo<br />
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-36626990428847932932012-05-15T16:51:00.001-04:002012-05-15T16:51:36.591-04:00When it gets warm this country is so gorgeous. It makes dreary winters falls and springs worth the wait. I am planting tomatoes and cucumbers, tending to herbs, eating popsicles, making jewelry, painting pots, constructing things out of clay, cooking hummus and pesto and cucumber salads, lazing about on the front porch, watching men across the street painting walls, and doing just about everything but writing my thesis. Camping this weekend.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-75521953250948771292012-05-02T23:35:00.002-04:002012-05-02T23:35:43.810-04:00You were driving, like you always do, facing forward with that confident smirk on your face that insecure people take for arrogance. Your hair is curly and the sun hits it in a certain way so that you are illuminated in stretches, this side of your face in relative shadow, in the cool of my glance. I am half embarrassed about last night and half diffident; you turn me into a child, sometimes, and other times, a woman twice my age. I am moving away from one table and towards another. Everyone I have ever met is reflected on the bright side of your face, turned away from me.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-51095593452883183582011-10-10T19:48:00.002-04:002011-10-10T19:51:38.297-04:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuor8aflkVjyzhszwtigB178C41HcQf2IyEV0tF4mBJOXiDCdDdpYOAFs3fzm1zD6EmuErgqGQIIxJiGbSibmXkGdcXLLIuA6o1ztN9MDFtQF15FE09IBsGQxiKtmOox-LUHe7BASpsVE/s1600/tumblr_lstzwn0gpP1qzxhoso1_500.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 296px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuor8aflkVjyzhszwtigB178C41HcQf2IyEV0tF4mBJOXiDCdDdpYOAFs3fzm1zD6EmuErgqGQIIxJiGbSibmXkGdcXLLIuA6o1ztN9MDFtQF15FE09IBsGQxiKtmOox-LUHe7BASpsVE/s400/tumblr_lstzwn0gpP1qzxhoso1_500.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662015355556152130" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />Talking to is also touching.<br />With hands wandering over you.<br />- Paul Celan<br /><br />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.<br /><br />(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.)Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-38698295122550923662011-09-28T01:57:00.002-04:002011-09-28T02:01:04.959-04:00The heaviness, the lightness, in doing something stupid. Avoiding Kant for a week. Cold nights and toes. I am single again. I fucked up my life as I am prone to do when things get...I don't know. I got my own new place, it is a little bachelor with a tiny deck and no counter space. I spent 200 dollars at the Asian market today getting staples. I can't wait to cook, drink a glass of wine, listen to soft folk music and watch the [future] snow from my big windows. I am being irresponsible.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-69120789835693638582011-09-07T11:08:00.002-04:002011-09-07T11:26:23.488-04:00It is raining outside my big 10-foot windows and downtown is looking bleak and resigned; summer is over and frat boys will be screaming "Wooo" more often and, to quote my friend Noel, such cries will reach their fever pitch this weekend. Students here are nuts.<br />Today is a perfect day for research and writing and isolating myself from London's increasingly busy streets. This cold, milky light reminds me of sitting on the old scuffed hard-wood floors at my old Toronto place, chain-smoking and watching the X-Files, or listening to Mount Eerie, or kissing you, or fighting with you, or crying to myself while gripping a glass of whiskey, or just lying back on the floor and falling asleep in those strips of light. The high melancholic pitch of my nostalgia reaches its peak in late August. Based on my observation of the blogs and tumblr's I am subscribed to and read daily, this is a common ailment. August is so painful. September is better.<br />Maybe only because it produces a different kind of anxiety; that fresh "I'm back to making something with my life" anxiety produced by new responsibilities and tasks, new people to impress, new papers and grant applications to write. Everyone knows or thinks "this year will be different." I prefer anxiety produced by the future to anxiety produced by the past. The future, at least, always turns out better than I expect.<br />I am lecturing next Friday and pretty scared about it. Although I have gotten more confident in public speaking and I consistently get great comments afterwards, I still fear criticism and I don't particularly like being in the spotlight. Even just being 'back' in and around campus and the theory center over the past few days has made me feel increasingly anxious. Stupidly, I am intimidated of meeting the new cohort of kids. And I am intimidated of having to finish writing this lecture, of having to present it, of having to do the GRE's in October, on having to write 30 pages of my thesis by September 15th, despite not really knowing what the fuck I'm doing. That said, this blog post (specifically paragraphs 2-4) really encouraged me yesterday and put my academic anxieties in perspective: <a href="http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/this-week-in-writing-and-the-anxiety-of-meaning/">This Week in Writing and the Anxiety of Meaning</a> by Levi Bryant at his blog Larval Subjects.<br />Anyways, I hope you are all doing well. xoKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-78636430775524623382011-09-01T20:16:00.003-04:002011-09-02T00:58:01.302-04:00Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?
<br />-Camus
<br />
<br />So, people. I need some advice or kind words.
<br />The last month or so has been nuts for me emotionally. August and September have always been really fucked up months. I start getting nostalgic and I get this urge to change my life entirely and basically run away to a new place, etc., that kind of cliche self-searching. I've started having dreams of people I miss, mostly old partners or friends, and the result of this is kind of devastating: imagine dreaming of an old lover and reliving the best times you had together, or the worst, and then wake up with either a manic desire to be with them again or a manic desire to "confront them" about obviously unresolved issues. Worst thing is, dreams can't be taken literally (can they?) so I know that more than likely these people are symbols of other issues; one in particular symbolizing my fear of rejection, inadequacy, etc. Instead of focusing on the feelings in the dreams, however, I focus on the person. And get fixated, and locked into a cycle of negative thoughts, wishing things were "different" or had gone differently. Etc. This occurs, sadly, despite my being in a relationship now and in what I consider to be a good situation; i.e. I can't "locate" anything wrong that would provoke such feelings. I don't know how to get out of the cycle. I keep telling myself "get over it." Seriously, why re-hash shit that happened a while ago? But just when I feel that depression subsiding I'll have another dream where, wow, this person is being so nice and loving and oh my if only ____. Sigh/barf. Talking to my boyfriend earlier, I realized that it is easier for me to cope with bad relationships because I don't have to be scared of some baseline falling out from under me - in bad relationships there is no baseline. And that kind of instability has always been easier for me to handle. At least it is predictable.
<br />Seriously, I miss my psychiatrist. I miss someone impartial saying things like "everyone has a hard time letting go of the past sometimes" and "be in the present" and etc., etc. I guess my issue is - is my inability to let go of this person/these people/the past a symptom that I am unhappy now? Do I need to "clear up" things with this or that person, or should I let things be? And am I crazy or do other people experience similar things?
<br />What I would like right now is a sun-drenched day on a secluded beach that ends with a big thunderstorm and a tent and quiet whispered candle-lit talks about philosophy and love and art.
<br />I can't concentrate on anything, or fall asleep, as much as I want to do the latter.
<br />I like that Camus quote because it encapsulates that feeling - when you're mired in existential angst, stuck in whatever past or future of fantasy, and you can either submit to it or say 'fuck it' and keep going with the daily grind. Indulge in small pleasures. Know that difficult things and feelings will pass and be replaced with new difficult but also joyful things and feelings.
<br />
<br />goodnight xo
<br />
<br />ps. for consistency's sake I'll give my obligatory apology for being sappy and probably much more boring than most of the other blogs you read. The self-loathing! Argh.
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-67217036270031866902011-08-17T01:39:00.004-04:002011-08-17T02:29:11.420-04:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQfW1Aw3uUvQS7TLIRBMAg96pmjpkEKjo5qZ6yndN2Wf3tqLxamjOc0GyLkj2a8P-vWWw4qpRj5OeLOT0W5tM_KRpvT4Eg00cLDp2kbIV3Pc40sPd22X8g2T3sN4FyAqa5Dhp-8QQoZoE/s1600/lukasz+wierzbowski.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQfW1Aw3uUvQS7TLIRBMAg96pmjpkEKjo5qZ6yndN2Wf3tqLxamjOc0GyLkj2a8P-vWWw4qpRj5OeLOT0W5tM_KRpvT4Eg00cLDp2kbIV3Pc40sPd22X8g2T3sN4FyAqa5Dhp-8QQoZoE/s400/lukasz+wierzbowski.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641705552077915938" border="0" /></a>
<br />Kind of feel like this.
<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7TSZ0t-aXa3a_bujZR4ttVUJMKhqwkXDAb3Djfzqy4kX4kQa8Jp-1-Hsw_GAqDjmdnDFVt1BnhoQx2o5c5Bk6J1jDZlbncQQMXIy7tC3Dhj7QOuzpJsOdE9eLmkJ94GMQgzQEkkyM10/s1600/aela+labbe.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7TSZ0t-aXa3a_bujZR4ttVUJMKhqwkXDAb3Djfzqy4kX4kQa8Jp-1-Hsw_GAqDjmdnDFVt1BnhoQx2o5c5Bk6J1jDZlbncQQMXIy7tC3Dhj7QOuzpJsOdE9eLmkJ94GMQgzQEkkyM10/s400/aela+labbe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641705545529963666" border="0" /></a>
<br />and this.
<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe_O2qPaCYCQ4PBjx_fAU7lL800dZOddz1sUA9gkA6zb4VFl40cyHvUEd_ZkWI2ldlgYhbVwBH9ahaMt6qCarlwwsubHcf0tbpl7vfue3NeNtbVQRr4nA7ZRhzuZOB4zN21j1lVEFlWMY/s1600/tumblr_lpygpv0cHs1qzb7gjo1_500.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe_O2qPaCYCQ4PBjx_fAU7lL800dZOddz1sUA9gkA6zb4VFl40cyHvUEd_ZkWI2ldlgYhbVwBH9ahaMt6qCarlwwsubHcf0tbpl7vfue3NeNtbVQRr4nA7ZRhzuZOB4zN21j1lVEFlWMY/s400/tumblr_lpygpv0cHs1qzb7gjo1_500.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641705535300389010" border="0" /></a>
<br />and even this.
<br /></div>
<br />When you read blogs, do you assume it is written for or about you? Do you feel the rush of a personal address, or look for that little sexy tidbit that may or may not refer to you? In my hubris, I do. That said, mostly only in the blogs of ex-friends and friends. I recognize the ridiculous vanity of this.
<br />That said, when I have the urge to write a blog post it is usually more or less <span style="font-style: italic;">for </span>someone. This one's for you.
<br />Today was brutally, utterly bad. After at least 5 or 6 attempts to quit smoking cold turkey this year alone, and countless times before this year, I've finally caved and purchased several boxes of nicotine gum. So now when I feel overwhelmed or when I start something or when I finish something or when I'm bored I chew this disgusting gum (or rather, keep it nestled between my teeth and gums, as per directions). Sometimes I forget and chew it too fast for too long and my tongue goes numb, and I get bad hiccups, and I start slurring my words. I feel bad because I am obviously edgy.
<br />It is rather horrifying to learn that the feeling of calm produced by a 'cigarette' is actually just a gross tingly chemical, a virtual thing that soaks into my brain. I feel foolish and dumb for relying on something I could hold.
<br />When you remove one or another chemical or security blanket from your system it is like peeling back a scab because everything is a little different, a little off. And it is hard for me to determine what anxieties are inherently "mine" and which are symptoms of psychological withdrawal. I guess that is the dilemma of life, really, now isn't it. It is kind of great, though, to be able to pin point something outside of yourself as a cause of [insert neurosis].
<br />I realize how bourgeois this is. No one gives a shit about me quitting smoking. I was thinking about writing this in the bright pink journal my step-mom gave me for Christmas, as yet unopened, but privacy is so DONE. But fucking blogging is so sickly and gross. Who do we blog for, and why?
<br />Alongside my cigarette-lack-induced-anxiety (or whatever) emerges my social anxiety, again, something that has been pleasantly dulled over the last year. In Toronto I tried to isolate myself from groups. I used to think that groups are too much, and are too risky. As soon as you add a third person to the social dynamic there is room to gossip, room for dissenting opinions, room to be rejected in favour of the other. This, however, I have realized, is a bad strategy. I have, instead, tried to balance groups and singles, and never keep the singles too isolated. (this is what happens when someone with anxiety problems - everyone? - makes friends: it becomes a fucked-up system). I stopped dissecting social relationships just enough in grad school (of all places) to make friends. But with that comes that paranoia: i.e. how much am I 'in the group' or am I really just a lone wolf (do all intellectuals and artists and people think that?); who is who's favourite, and am I being too anti-social this week, this month, this evening? Am I dancing in a strange way? Can I just dance without thinking all these thoughts? Usually, but the last week or so has been marked by an upsurge in insecurity.
<br />The rest of my summer, dwindling into its last days:
<br />1. move 5 groups of friends into their new homes.
<br />2. write my theory session talk on the city as embodied/other in China Mieville's <span style="font-style: italic;">The City and the City</span> (Michel deCerteau, Lefebvre, D&G, blah).
<br />3. avoid my chain-smoking, indulgent, nonsensical but brilliant supervisor until such a point that I can successfully turn down his non-stop cigarette and beer offerings
<br />4. write the first 30 pages of my thesis project on the cybergothic
<br />5. move into my new place, get the cat settled, avoid spending all my money on mid-century furniture, avoid domestic disputes that will unsettle our neighbours (we will be living above an amazing indian restaurant and a used bookstore - heaven, basically, yes). This is the first time I'll be living with a partner since...four years. And of course I pick a spitfire of a smart, amazing, but loud and opinionated man.
<br />6. write, I think, 5 proposals for conferences
<br />7. finish the four mixed media pieces I have started (they're almost done!)
<br />8. calm the fuck down, in general.
<br />
<br />I'm going to do my tarot reading now. sweet dreams. xo
<br />
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">images: <a href="http://sequin-covered-swans.tumblr.com/archive">lukasz wierzbowski,</a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aela/">aela labbe</a>, random tumblr, I'm sorry.</span>
<br />
<br />Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-76859831898660647882011-06-21T12:30:00.004-04:002011-06-21T12:49:19.313-04:00Poetry<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoQrfjg9r9rA60Ph-kQnPp5DjfSLqWUOWtUk3f7u9yNegUrXrSo-t4j2XzJ4-me7oA3jExQZJ1Brjs1VvRYxUaXh9VhkisaXLLRfhF_Q0wnzQAX27lEwgWWqBWMuXXdCDj4yXR0vf23UU/s1600/tumblr_lmn6vdS7iu1qc1q4do1_500.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 354px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoQrfjg9r9rA60Ph-kQnPp5DjfSLqWUOWtUk3f7u9yNegUrXrSo-t4j2XzJ4-me7oA3jExQZJ1Brjs1VvRYxUaXh9VhkisaXLLRfhF_Q0wnzQAX27lEwgWWqBWMuXXdCDj4yXR0vf23UU/s400/tumblr_lmn6vdS7iu1qc1q4do1_500.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620715416493965410" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWPk84U5aB0ERuCYsxlbtlUy6z2gs8ewr8k9EmEed9UYp7hh-1luVqAEEuJzqkRJlsLXG0dwPqmWdBbDYtCKUC9NSCG62QW45PssJ8PtcVK9kCVf649Dhxm2DP9cX-m91ebz80z-XzF88/s1600/tumblr_llgutjSEGR1qbfoleo1_500.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 321px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWPk84U5aB0ERuCYsxlbtlUy6z2gs8ewr8k9EmEed9UYp7hh-1luVqAEEuJzqkRJlsLXG0dwPqmWdBbDYtCKUC9NSCG62QW45PssJ8PtcVK9kCVf649Dhxm2DP9cX-m91ebz80z-XzF88/s400/tumblr_llgutjSEGR1qbfoleo1_500.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620715422704447138" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />Today marks my two-week mark in BC. Yesterday we went into Vancouver and Dock took me to one of the best bars I've ever been to - there is no "entrance," just an open door at the back of a warehouse building. A few dilapidated hallways later and you're in a sufficiently bohemian but non-pretentious red room covered with neo-colonial paintings and local artwork, drinking cider and buying fancy cigarettes from a dude with an amazing tattoo sleeve and getting advice from locals about where to buy the best dumplings in old Chinatown.<br />People are so much more friendly on the West Coast. I can't count the number of random conversations struck up with mostly working class dudes on random patios, buses, ferries. It helps having a highly personable and outgoing partner.<br />After the bar my boyfriend was presenting a talk on Hauntology (Derrida, Deleuze, Beckett, Kafka) at a whole-in-the-wall art space filled with kind people. A bunch did talks on random things. It was a great vibe - and so much more relaxed than an academic conference. At academic conferences there is a certain level of "high theory" expected from the speakers, so when people just shoot the shit about stuff they like, I always feel a little disappointed. Not for lack of interest but for lack of theoretical engagement. Here, though, it was just relaxed and good vibes. You like twitter? Tell me about it. You're a teacher and your gifted students wrote a collaborative mystery novel? Amazing.<br />We have bought almost 30 books while here. I have bought a bunch of mid-century antiques for our new place. I am reading "the Broom of the System" by David Foster Wallace. I just finished reading Mieville's "The City and the City." A fresh volume of Bukowski is sitting beside my bed on top of Deleuze under a mug of peach mango tea. I smell bacon in the air and we are going to a water park later today.<br />Shit is good.<br /><br />ps. that Bukowski poem really struck me and made me happy and sad when I first read it. I want a wall of my home covered with Bukowski quotes that make me cry.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614959252330800439.post-76081590396222802011-03-18T14:18:00.002-04:002011-03-18T14:24:36.725-04:00I am so exhausted of bodies and women's parts blown up like balloons or cut into pieces so that they are adequately tiny or adequately round and their skin is sufficiently smooth so that we can reinscribe meanings and our own desire or fear of desire or inability to desire on to their available surfaces. I feel that public sexuality is such a stupid farce; as much as I want people to be comfortable with their bodies and sexuality, what has become so called 'sexual liberation' is the opposite of comfort - it is the putting-on of sexuality as a hard, impenetrable shell so that all we are given to jerk off to is that - those shapes and listless eyes. I don't want sex to have "meaning" in that old, stilted, oppressive way, but I want it to be relational and an exchange between people rather than spectacle, images.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08850785947397462240noreply@blogger.com5