Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?
-Camus

So, people. I need some advice or kind words.
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.
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?
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.
I can't concentrate on anything, or fall asleep, as much as I want to do the latter.
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.

goodnight xo

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.

Kind of feel like this.

and this.

and even this.

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.
That said, when I have the urge to write a blog post it is usually more or less for someone. This one's for you.
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.
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.
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].
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?
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.
The rest of my summer, dwindling into its last days:
1. move 5 groups of friends into their new homes.
2. write my theory session talk on the city as embodied/other in China Mieville's The City and the City (Michel deCerteau, Lefebvre, D&G, blah).
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
4. write the first 30 pages of my thesis project on the cybergothic
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.
6. write, I think, 5 proposals for conferences
7. finish the four mixed media pieces I have started (they're almost done!)
8. calm the fuck down, in general.

I'm going to do my tarot reading now. sweet dreams. xo

images: lukasz wierzbowski, aela labbe, random tumblr, I'm sorry.

scooters, vacation, fall

I feel incredibly guilty and sad today. And disappointed in myself, I guess. For not having any Marxist pep this morning and doodling horrific looking bodies instead of watching Santiago Alvarez films in my Brechtian cinema class. For being someone I would be afraid to be with. For having little motivation to write about Deleuze and modified bodies, and little confidence. I wish I wasn't so scattered and sad all the time.
Of course, I write here pretty much only when I get into these moods, so I am in no way trying to say that my life is bad or that I have any reason to mope. Everyone has certain thresholds that they come up against. When I get here there is nothing left to do but scale down my self-created wall of shame and pool up at the bottom until the feelings pass. Wait it out wait it out wait it out.
I've been meaning to write this quote here for a while. Blake Butler told me to read Zeroville so I did, and it is amazing. And each section functions like a vignette, usually unrelated and readable in its own right.

'In America you have this idea that anything about sex is acceptable only if it absolutely is not, under any circumstances, sexy. The Americans are too romantic to make such a film. They are in love with shame.'
'The French are romantic.'
Maria dismisses this with the flick of her fingers.
'Quelle mythe! No one ever said in a French film, 'We'll always have Paris.' Can you imagine Bogart fucking Bergman with a cube of butter on the Champs-Elysees as the Nazis march in? The pornographer? He is concerned with what the characters do, while the artist, the artist is concerned with what the characters are. The man does not pay me for the sex, he pays me to leave afterward. For the lack of consequences.'
'He pays you to leave?'
'This is what Brando thinks will save him in Dernier Tango...sex without consequences.'
'You are paid to leave?'
'This is what destroys him, because there is no sex without consequence.'
'Perhaps last Tango in Paris isn't just about sex.'
'Cheri,' she laughs, 'sex is never just about sex.'

Images:
3. Georges Rousse
2. Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus
1. Room O (I think) by Yves G. Noir

Today is the first day in a while that I've had to just do my shit at home, eat strawberries, clean stuff, catch up on shit in my google reader (500+ unread items), browse etsy, and most importantly, watch some x-files. Pretty much every actor on that show sucks except for the main two. And everyone speaks in deep voices, and everyone says things like "you have no idea just how deep...the truth goes" all the time. Its great.
In 10-ish days I'll be moving out of the apartment I've lived in for almost 3 years. I'm moving out of this city for a few years to do my MA. And I'm not sure exactly how I'll respond when the shit hits the fan and everything is different. My psychiatrist made me nervous on tuesday, he started talking about establishing some sort of coping strategy/plan-b if the changes instigate any "warning signals" of another breakdown. If anxiety is really just avoidance, then I am anxious about the plan itself, and not the changes - at least at this point. Or {insert psychobabble about repression, projection, avoidance, whatever}. What is the best way to adjust to big life changes? I'm confused.
Losing people isn't so hard if its me leaving, and not them. And any lost relationships will be indirectly lost, not intentionally broken. I feel selfishly comforted knowing that I won't be the one left alone due to another person's actions, abandonment, rejection. And I'm trying really hard not to go into self-preservation sabotage-any-relationships-you-are-afraid-to-lose-later-on mode. It sucks that everyone just grows out of most relationships. Most friendships have expiry dates, when it just stops clicking. I get that feeling pretty often.

I'm feeling really exhausted, of everything. It's hard to put things in perspective because, obviously, I've done nothing but write papers the last 3 weeks and I have one left and my brain is sore. And I'm not taking care of myself, my body is falling apart. I haven't left my boyfriend's apartment since Tuesday. I need to go out and breath and buy some fruit and make a smoothie and stop being on the internet. I am so tired of being inundated with information but its like I compulsively seek it out when I need my brain to stop thinking about misrecognition and fracturing and Kushner's fault lines of creation. Doesn't anybody get sick of shit, the parade of fucking naked girls online, the fucking disaffected irony of things, the constant updates, the endless google reader-wheel, the making-of-plans, the mutual masturbation of facebook? I want to be out in-the-world but I don't want it to be full of people. I'm really sick of blogging too, I feel like this is a waste of time, but - I compulsively do it anyways. Habits die hard.
ps. I put on comment moderation because of all the spam. Its really irritating to me.

Photo sources
1 + 5 unknown
2 sacha heron
3 baubauhaus
4 a journey around my skull

Rant 1.

"Living Dolls explores the dark side of the sexual revolution. Walter makes the point that the pressure on young women to live up to a shag-happy ideal can alienate more reserved and quietly brilliant females who aren’t that interested in shaking their arse for FHM. Seventeen-year old Carly: ‘There aren’t any other options. You’re a sex object, and then you’re a mother, and that’s it. There is no alternative culture.' I think Walter could have explored that last statement more. As soon as a woman reaches a certain age (say, about twenty-six) the pressure to down Aftershocks and fall out of nightclubs stops and the pressure to find a man and churn out some babies begins. We have managed to combine the objectification of women with the cult of childbirth. The nuclear family crumbles, divorce rates shoot up, and yet against all sense and evidence we continue to promote the idea that the best thing a woman can be is a mother. Result: an epidemic of teenage pregnancy as young girls learn to associate reproduction with empowerment."

From "In the Company of Men" at 3:AM magazine. Link. Italics are mine.

This looks like an interesting read. I'm always ranting about this: the fact that "sexually-liberated" women are suspiciously "liberated" in a way that is structured by male desire. Many women have still not learned how to articulate what it means to be sexually liberated outside of the limits of the male gaze framework. It irks me to see women either 1) "act like men" because "we're equal" and "can fuck around too" or 2) conform to some sort of porn-star "bad-ass" ideal. In the latter case, this ideal is the same as when men were creating it, only now women themselves are propagating it and pretending that its new and liberating because they feel "in control." Riiiight. I think its equally significant and awesome that the writer indicates that women are under pressure to go to nightclubs and be that "sexually-liberated, freedom-loving" young woman. Her wording suggests (correctly, in my opinion) that this is not a lifestyle automatically suited to all young people, nor something all women strive for within that same framework. I consider myself sexually-liberated and free, blah blah blah, but I want to feel it and live it on my own terms, not as some silly alt-coquette man eater. I feel like I've grown out of that phase but I still feel pressure (perhaps internally and socially) to be out and about and showing myself off. But I just don't want to.

Rant 2.

I've noticed recently that commercials that target women usually use the stupid-as-fuck husband as some sort of prop stock character to sell shit. Ie. man who can't load the dishwasher, man who can't cook eggs without making a huge mess, man who just generally looks like a dumb-fucking-failure. Insert image of smirking smart-ass wife in the background pulling out the fucking lysol while the children look on knowingly. Men are not stupid. Most men that I know personally are very self-sufficient. Most women I know are very self-sufficient. I feel that this kind of commercial epitomizes what the ignorant masses have taken as the "moral" of second-wave feminism: your husband is stupid, you can pretend to give him a little power but ultimately you have complete control. I hate this interpretation/mis-reading of feminist concerns and I hate the fact that one gender is always placed under the other. Sugar-coated "equality" stuck with needles. Passive-aggressive "neutrality" masking resentment.

Rant 3.

The amount of "alternative" girls posing in so-called "provocative" poses is driving me nuts, mostly because its so hilarious. Girls in AA sprawled over random pieces of furniture, girls with "pensive" looks and stupid fucking looks on their faces. My personal favourite is the "intense eye" (usually coupled with thick-rimmed glasses) which is usually 100% terrifying. It was interesting for a while but now that the whole internet is inundated with the self-portraits of girls obsessed with their own "unique personal brand" I just want to hit a big ERASE ALL button and start my brain over.

Done, done, done.

Sartre admitted in 1939 that he never experienced the existential nausea he wrote about. I feel cheated by this a little. I never really enjoyed Sartre as a person. I've read too much of Simone deBeauvoir's autobiographical material to respect Sartre. A combination of Camus, Kant and fucking Schopenhauer has put me in a very strange head space. I hate hate hate my dreams. Even when they are pleasant enough visually they terrify me. I was floating in the ocean and it was sunny and beautiful and despite this I continued to experience waves of panic, feeling that something foreign and larger than me and dangerous was about to brush against my legs. That's only one part of the sequence that involved lots of people I don't really want to dream about, but I do all the time. Schopenhauer is a very bleak and sad man. Everything is utterly meaningless and absurd and despite that we still possess 'will to life' that results in the fabrication of a 'bubble of illusion' - a fabricated excuse to keep our body moving, to justify reproduction. The only metaphysically respectful form of suicide (according to Schopenhaur) is starving-yourself-to-death because it involves a slow process of waning 'will to life' - when your body shuts down you enter a state of depersonalization where its possible to step outside of your body and detach from its petty concern to remain alive. No wonder I'm feeling groundless and sad. Camus is the same:
"At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them. The primitive hostility of the world rises up to face us across millennia. For a second we cease to understand it because for centuries we have understood it in solely the images and designs that we had attributed to it beforehand, because henceforth we lack the power to make use of that artifice. The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage scenery masked by habit becomes again what it is. It withdraws at a distance from us. Just as there are days when under the familiar face of a woman, we see as a stranger her we had loved months or years ago, perhaps we shall come even to desire what suddenly leaves us so alone."
This in particular bothers me a lot. The absurdity of seeing someone that I have touched in every way possible, that I spent hours in bed with - now as a stranger. I no longer know them and I never really did. "Knowing" people is familiarity and habituation; association. I want to shake people hard when I feel this way, scream at them, "what the fuck, this is a stupid game, I know you;" I want to sustain that illusion because it makes me feel less lonely. But instead I keep up the stupid vacuous exchange, I continue to let words spurt out of my mouth mechanically, mundane fucking shit. I can't even deal with it. The loss, but also the indifference. It's paralyzing. When I first read Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" (which you should read, by the way) I felt "fuck yeah, I get this" but then I felt, confused, that I can never really reach that state of indifference again. I feel irreparable sometimes, in certain areas. In my seminar yesterday my professor asked: "if, according to psychology, Schopenhauer's philosophizing is the result of a chemical imbalance or psychological disorder, does that devalue what he wrote?" I guess you could ask the same of most philosophers, who, for the most part, either killed themselves or went insane (except for dudes like Sartre who were apparently faking anyways). Of course I don't think so, I am still wary of 'diagnoses.' Maybe some psychiatrists (I doubt mine would, he's become aware of my sensitivity in this area and is generally a cool dude) would probably say, yes, everything you wrote over the past few weeks has been symptomatic of your various 'disorders.' How to reconcile my identity and creativity with this, I don't know. I'm supposed to ask myself a series of questions when I feel this fucked up. "Is anything really broken?" "if you are broken, do you need to pick up the pieces" "is it possible to relinquish the struggle" These questions make me feel nauseous and silly. They feel like stock psychology questions meant to manipulate a certain response out of me. But when it comes down to it: yes, I think most people are 'broken' and yes, I think most of us, including me, try to pick up the pieces, because who the fuck enjoys feeling untethered. Who the fuck wants to feel like damaged goods. As for relinquishing the struggle, I don't really know what the fuck that even means. I don't feel that I'm struggling, I just feel depressed. There is a word for this world-weariness in German that has an untranslatable connotation in English. Weltschmerz. World-pain. I think that this kind of angst probably sounds less trite in German. English words are so inadequate, they betray my meaning. I'm pretty good at life, though. There is no reason for me to feel waves of panic and literal nausea while sitting in groups of people talking about stupid shit. There is no reason for me to feel disgust at people's faces, people that I love or respect. I wish I could control these things. And when it comes down to it, I want to affirm life. I don't think everything is meaningless and absurd, or rather, I find it insanely liberating to feel untethered and disillusioned. According to Camus, thats when consciousness starts. I believe that. But I also believe that philosophy is really, really dangerous, and that its impossible not to swing between those extremes: elation and desperation in the face of absurdity. What I love about most of my professors is that they're all very good-natured, very chill and seemingly content people, despite having read so much depressing material. I admire this, and I want to be like this. I wish I could just snap my fingers and feel less terrified, less sad, less angry. My Dad always told me that happiness is something you can just choose. Simple, just give your problems to God, he used to say, completely serious. But that's not going to happen.

Rape Tunnel/Rape as Fetish

But rape is way more extreme than a punch to the face. Is your intention to ruin people’s lives?

Possibly. I’m not necessarily concerned with the positive or negative effects of this project so long as there is some effect on people’s lives. I’ve merely set up a situation where there is potential to impact people in meaningful ways. Maybe I won’t be able to rape everyone who crawls through the tunnel, but the door is open for all kinds of scenarios; rape, serious injury, maybe even death. I might even get arrested. Right now the installation isn’t even complete, and I’ve riled up a substantial portion of the local population. The installation as an idea is powerful enough itself.

- Richard Whitehurst interviewed by Sheila Zareno for Artlurker

The enigma is that of an object which offers itself up in total transparency, and hence cannot be naturalized by critical or aesthetic discourse. It is that of a superficial, artificial object which succeeds in preserving its artificiality, in shaking free of any natural signification to take on a spectral intensity, empty of meaning, which is that of the fetish. The fetish object has no value, Or rather, it has an absolute value; it lives off the ecstasy of value.

-Baudrillard, "Machinic Snobbery" from The Perfect Crime

This article fills me with so much distaste and anger and resentment on so many levels.
What the fuck is going on with the post-pomo art scene? How does a rape tunnel in any way contribute to art becoming 'meaningful' again within contemporary society? If anything, this kind of..."installation" contributes to the increasing meaningless of contemporary art, which has become a scene of increasingly 'weird' people invested in maintaining identities as 'crazy' artists making as much noise as possible to promote increasingly boring ideas about irony and absurdity and the death of the artist, blah blah blah. I think as soon as art took a turn towards absurdity for its own sake, all of its social purpose or 'meaning' disintegrated except as a vehicle for personal self-promotion, under the guise of the artist as a 'non-entity.' Baudrillard talks about this, it is not new. But I think it is an illusion to say that the artist has disappeared, because I think all that remains is the artist as some stupid laughing asshole throwing shit around and demanding an audience.
Why, if art is indeed meaningless, are we only reinforcing this message by focusing more and more on the absurdity of art? Wouldn't it be more radical at this point to create art with a purpose and some sort of social intent, with values and a particular aesthetic manifesto in mind? How does more shock = a return to meaning? Doesn't this method actually result in the opposite? Art is reduced to publicity stunts for attention that evoke little else but shock value. If you read his interview, he doesn't actually give a shit about what is actually going on here, in terms of interpersonal relationships (if you can call it that), hyperreality, any sort of message, etc. The 'artists intent' is literally "evoke a response." Never mind what kind of response or the irrevocable damage it could cause; any response will do, and apparently, the only thing that even evokes mild discontent or concern within our society currently is a pseudo-staged strategized rape scenario. The really frightening thing is that the public becomes increasingly desensitized as a result, and this phenomena produces shit like this asshole's 'rape tunnel.' What the fuck is wrong with our society that makes us so fucking numb to everything except the thrilling possibility of "consensual rape"? And doesn't this whole installation trivialize the experiences of actual rape victims? Doesn't this trivialize the experience in general by turning it into a hyperreal simulacrum of violence? Are people so numb and dead and unaffected that they would enter this tunnel knowing full well that it will lead to sexual assault? It is sad the lengths people will go to feel anything, and the associated absurd attitude that all experience is good experience, which corresponds to the whole paradox of more shock = more meaning. Meaning is not a quantitative value; you can't measure meaningful experience according to its severity or, in this case, the degree to which you are possibly psychologically and physically damaged. There seems to be a general attitude of 'fuck it, I'll try anything once, why limit my experiences' hence, 'fuck yeah, sure, I'll enter a rape tunnel.' There is enough sadness and destruction and rape and violence going on in the 'real' world; why the fuck do we seek out simulated hyperreal versions of this in (of all places) the art scene? I thought art was supposed to detract from this, not contribute. Why do people feel that excess is required to achieve any sort of meaningful existence? Our widespread existential groundlessness results in this compulsion to fill ourselves up with 'new' experiences but the irony is that all of these so-called 'authentic' experiences are manufactured for consumption, they are not genuine, authentic or meaningful experiences. Everyone wants to 'live life to the fullest' but no one ever thinks about picking and choosing experiences in terms of their positive or negative effects. For example, I find it incredibly ironic that people feel they are living 'fun and exciting lives' by going out to bars and drinking their asses off every fucking weekend. I mean, really? This is exciting to you? It all just seems very manufactured and simulated and repetitive to me. And so fucking easy. Art and bars and social situations in general are all laid out for us to pick and choose from (for a price, of course). Everything - 'contemporary art' 'live music' 'the bar/club scene' - are designated spaces purchased and purchasable, we can pick and choose pre-fabricated experiences and then pretend like we've earned it and have some free choice in the choosing. And apparently rape is now on the board of possible experiences produced for easy consumption.
When I read early post-modern poetry, poetics are still meaningful, the artist has a method, a system of values that guides their creative process. When I read this kind of poetry I respond strongly, in ways that I never really do when I read most current contemporary poetry. I mean, there are amazing moments when I read something new and think 'fuck yes, this means something' but for the most part, I just feel kind of bored with the cynical post-ironic, blase tone (of some, dare I say most) of the literature being produced by my generation. Call me old-fashioned or romantic, but I'd like to reinvest some real values into art. Some passion, some ethics. Nobody works hard at anything any more, everybody wants everything to come easy. And, voila, it does. It just doesn't mean anything.

A good man is hard to find...

say Sufjan Stevens, Flannery O'Connor, Sophie Tucker and Micah: "The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men." (Micah 7:2)

Spinoza's one Substance/non-anthropomorphic divinity 'sees' all the possible manifestations of the universe, all infinite variations, down to the most minute differentiations. God allows only one of these variations to unfold, and, according to Spinoza, this is the best possible variation, the best possible coming-into-being of the universe. For whom and according to what master plan, though? If this is indeed the best way for my life to unfold according to some abstract concept of divinity or 'essence' and a deterministic model of order...well then, I suppose thankfulness is in order, even if happiness for me personally is sacrificed for the sake of some more general 'order.' I'm not an altruist but the idea of my life and its events fitting into some 'larger,' essential and intrinsic order appeals to moi.

I don't enjoy Stoicism but I think it can be useful. It's useful when applied to suffering. And when Epictetus says, "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well," my gut response is a 'fuck dude' groan of exasperation but then, sure, I get it. Stoicism requires you form no attachments to avoid all excess and pain. Recognize that everything is temporary and perishable. Extreme self-discipline to the point of repression. This kind of restraint is not only difficult for me but also seems like a ridiculous approach to life. But its starting to look like a good option. I'm so tired, tired, sad, sad.

I am not a practical or matter-of-fact person, which is why I am drawn to some mystical notion of (shall I say) fate, maybe because of my Christian upbringing, maybe because I am a softy-idealist not far beneath the surface, maybe because I want certainty and direction and a reason not to throw my fucking hands in the air and say 'fuck it' as is so fashionable with my generation. Fuck, I think that I gave up God and replaced it with philosophy, which is essentially the same thing. And now I'm reeling at philosophy, angry at having discovered its tendency to continously point back to God, with subtlety and patience and occasional urgency. All philosophy speaks of a certain kind of 'faith.' I have a deterministic streak. Which is why, when I looked at you that day and I felt something very strong, I knew you were important to me, and I still feel that way. And no, I don't want to give this up. Shit sticks with me, people stick with me. This is my curse and blessing. I feel lonely most of the time because I miss everybody, always. I miss that boy I punched on the school yard in kindergarten and later kissed. I miss the person who taught me how to smoke. I miss God sometimes.

I spent this evening curled up on the floor infront of the fireplace. It is getting cold here. Talking to my brother about his eventful sex life, laughing at and with my Mother, watching home renovation shows, reading Robert Duncan. Family is all I have and all I want to be surrounded with right now.

convoluted things coming out of my brain.

"Drama is what happens when people get together and live"
this is a profound statement adam coates, this is exactly what I should have said last week when a man said that he "didn't want to be involved in my drama" this is exactly what I thought, while feeling very sad. instead I think I started to cry and stared at the ceiling for a little bit, feeling that something was ending. maybe he didn't think anything except 'get me the fuck out of this girls life.' I think a lot of men think that a lot about me, maybe I felt "this is starting in the same way and will end in the same way and I feel sad because I don't have the naivete to be excited anymore." there is a certain fatigue in that but we all keep on keeping on, etc. also, that song on your blog is so so beautiful.

I have only cried 5 times in the past two weeks. twice have been in the past two days as a result of blog posts. Here and here.

I know that noah cicero does not read my blog or whatever and I feel that if he did notice that I linked to that post he would probably feel some degree of disdain or distaste toward me. Fuck, that sounds like a lame disclaimer. But...these lines really hit me, really really hard, because this is something I have been trying to say to people over the last few months without feeling like anybody really knows what I'm saying at all:

but i don't want a lot of people around
they've really begun to drive me nuts
really crazy with their stupid shit
It is like I'm constantly overwhelmed by the present
there it is
the objects, the now, everything talking place
observing
hearing
other people have the knack of turning it off or not noticing it all

People say things like this all the time but I don't really feel it from them. But, truly, I always really feel stuff that Noah Cicero writes. I guess thats a sign of a good writer. Fuck I'm really lame tonight, I apologize.

I am oscillating between feeling very very alone and feeling very very free. when one component shifts or removes itself from my life I start throwing everything out the fucking window, I feel like every important component in my life has changed or dissipated in the last two weeks. This is somewhat terrifying and I am sorry if you are one of those people who has periodically been deleted from my life. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

I just want to feel important and loved by one single person for one single day. Someone, please, I need this very badly.

when I jumped into the air over the water for that split half-second before my body hit I felt shocked and euphoric and light and out of control. and then my body was submerged and everything was open and I felt like my skin was tearing and my brain was tugging out of my ears and then I was up again with the sun shining all over my naked exposed shoulders

"the condition of renewal means you cut your roots"
-Zizek

This photo makes me feel so uncomfortable, its excellent.

The new Mount Eerie is blowing my fucking mind, I suggest listening to it. It'll be the perfect fall record. Phil Elverum is quiet but immense. His voice never breaks out of that space, even when the noise under it explodes. No music better describes how my brain works.

District 9 is probably one of the best movies I've seen recently. I kind of gave up on current movies having any impact on me whatsoever.

I don't know how to function on streets full of people wearing fedoras and high-waisted skirts and big glasses, pulling their vintage bikes along sidewalks. If I spend more than 20 minutes on the internet I get frustrated at the levels of irony going on. Ironic ironic irony/satire/what? and the number of 'post-posts' added onto the everything and the ever-receding levels of meta-bullshit. I feel that the last two years of my life have consisted in people whining about me "not living my life to the fullest" and "allowing anxiety to hold me back" as though their version of "living life to the fullest" is somehow preferable. I'm sick of beating myself up for not buying into some lifestyle brand obsession, a capitalized version of Youth that somehow requires I avoid difficult relationships and start taking artsy pictures of myself to post on facebook and network with other "like-minded creative individuals" and smoke weed and drink myself to oblivion on the weekends. None of that shit has ever made me happy, and I'm sick of people acting like it should, and if I could only "take life less seriously" I'd be a lot "happier" whatever the fuck that means. The more happy I am with myself, the more contempt I feel for society and the less I'm willing to buy into other people's bullshit versions of happiness. And its not some profound angsty contempt about whatever, the loss of meaning, blah blah blah. It's just a lingering fatigue. I'm finding peace in small things, like succint lines in Jacqueline Rose's theory and subtle movements in songs and my hands running over vegetables in Koreatown markets and Italian opera heard all the way down Queen from Dundas and men with scarred hands stopping me in Kensington to trade cigarettes and tell me I'm beautiful.

Shakespeare's sister is a bitch.

I'm feeling highly fucked-up and extremely poor. Job doesn't appear to have worked out for me. Too bad I had that one day of being happy and spent $40 on jewelery-making supplies that I could have used to eat food for an extra week. The situation is pretty dire when $40 is a major loss.

I feel pretty much excluded from all social situations. I realize this is because I have a very difficult time 'performing' without being self-conscious about it. As a result, I just back down and get sullen. When in groups of men, I feel excluded by their tension and obvious investment in performing gender, performing what it means to be a 'male.' I'm sure the same phenomena applies to women, but to be honest, the last time I was in a group of more than 3 women was probably 8 years ago (thanks to traumatic preteen experiences, of course). The construction of male social identity is so painfully obvious to me. Let's talk about girls with big tits and a phenomenal ass. Let's talk about how you picked her out of the crowd and pointed to declare 'I will possess that.' What position am I left in as a woman within this discussion? I am immediately given the choice to perform in several different ways, all of which position me as an outsider/observer with no voice.
I can:
1) laugh at your "casual misogyny" and pretend to be "one of the boys" who "gets it"
2) remain quiet
3) respond in a critical manner
Which of these is the best way to respond? None of these responses are effective or useful for a woman within that male discourse. I'm set up to fail within this discourse of male-male bonding. So a lot of dudes would say, "then stay out of it." But what kind of time are we living in? Apparently we're still down with alienating people of both genders. Anyone with a vagina is automatically 1) prompted to reject her identity as a woman in order to fit in and let the boys be boys 2) relegated to silence, given no voice or position to respond 3) demonized as an outsider "bitchy-feminist." A lot of people are not self-aware enough to recognize when things they say are translucent attempts to perform gender as it is 'supposed' to be performed. And most of the shit that comes out of peoples mouths is self-admittedly 'not the reality' of the situation. It's all just a fucking show, and when I question men about sexist comments they're like "oh, I'm just joking" or laugh it off as "natural" (!!) male posturing. Regardless, that doesn't magically make such comments neutral.

If only I didn't let anything bother me, if only I wasn't such a bitch, right? Too bad shit sticks with me and I have an opinion.

Sorry this post is so ranty and possibly unintelligible. I am heavily drugged post-panic attack. And the panic returns. I was huddled in a bathroom stall trying to control my breathing and someone wrote "this too shall pass" on the door.

Thanks.

I feel like the city is not-so-quietly disintegrating!
Mel's Diner went bankrupt! This is the place I used to eat at almost every day, dirty as fuck but delicious greasy all-day breakfast on Bloor open 24/7 for the past 40 years and the most delicious montreal smoked meat.
Pages Bookstore is being shut down and replaced with a McDonald's! What the fuck? Pages is one of the best bookstores in Toronto. There are already a myriad of McDonald's dominating Queen street corners. There's one half a block away at Spadina.
Everything is closing.
Everyone is being a sketch-bag.
The streets are full of garbage.
News people are telling citizens to stay away from emergency garbage dump sites because they are now festering with disease and rodents.
Fruit flies are taking over.
I feel really lost.
I know I'm a wreck when all that centers me in my life is Lacan.
Everything that saves me also destroys me, eventually.

I feel fairly terrified about life right now and the large looming presence of "FUTURE." On one hand, I want to look forward to what's coming up. On the other hand, there are complications and hurdles to be crossed before good things can happen. When I start to think about everything in one mass lump sum I feel extreme panic. In retrospect, the shit that I've been through recently seems like it should have felt a lot harder to deal with than it actually felt at the time. Or maybe, PAST as whole lump sum is equally difficult to make sense of and perceive "objectively" as FUTURE. The shittiest things that happen to me occur very much out of the blue, so that I can't even worry about them beforehand (shame). Life tends to work out eventually, in strange forms, as it does for most people. Keep on keeping on. I'm still terrified, however. The only way I make sense of shit and ease my panic is to spout off cliches and trite interior monologues about taking 'one day at a time.'

I would like people to recommend me some e-books or chapbooks that they like. I want to inundate myself with poetry this weekend.

This weekend, the small press convention is happening at the Toronto Reference Library. I want to go but feel that I will spend a lot of money on books and my reading list is already at 40+ over the next few months. I need to learn more and be more involved in Canadian literature, and not just the [mostly] dry canon of CanLit. I am now a junior editor for a lit/art journal based at my university. I get to read poetry and judge people. The more shitty poetry I read the more I appreciate all you great bloggers out there, mixing shit up, being all innovative. Keep it up, y'all make the world a more interesting place.

I feel really scattered today.
I'm writing an essay that feels like a gang rape against Fanon. I've got Debord, Laclau, Guitarri and Marcuse all up against him flashing phallic symbols. Maybe a little unfair. The sad thing is, I really like Fanon. He's a cool dude. Terrorist violence, sure. But its incredibly easy to argue against him. I feel very stressed about this paper. And who will read it? Who gives a fuck? Maybe 3 people at most will ever read this piece of shit.
My roommate and her friend were sitting on the front porch holding a copy of a Fanon text and this douchebag frat boy walked by and said 'oh cool Franz Ferdinand.' Barf. This city erupts in the spring time with horny 20 year-old boys pleasantly equipped with daddy's money and nothing better to do but strut around like they have huge cocks. Where do they all come from? Its like they spring up from the depths of hell to torture women everywhere. No one wants to be shouted at. No one wants to be whistled at. No one wants cars to slow down and follow them down the street while the group inside yell sexual innuendos. What the fuck do you want me to do? Jump the fuck in and suck your dick?
I chose to quit smoking yesterday. Again. Yes. I generally choose days to quit when I'm too lazy to walk to the store (which is literally right outside my apartment building by the way). Probably a bad strategy. I am okay with being an addict if I actually enjoy what I'm addicted to. But I don't enjoy smoking anymore. So I must end my love affair. My strategy is to buy large quantities of junk food and whenever I get a craving for nicotine, eat candy in 30 second intervals for approximately 8 minutes at a time. We'll see how that goes.
When my cats go for more than 2 hours without food they start doing ridiculous things. Like chase each other around the apartment, throw up in front of my bedroom door, spill water all over the kitchen, jump in the bath tub while I'm taking a shower, open the fridge with their paws and smell around for meat, sit on the books I happen to be reading, climb ridiculous things and propel their bodies to the floor, stare at me with sad eyes like I am depriving them of all joy in life, etc. I think its time to go to the store.
I am bitter.

I like bleak things.

I am so happy it is not sunny today. I think I would stay home if it was.

I fell asleep last night at 10. I was experiencing moderate - severe anxiety at school yesterday, for no apparent reason, so I was full of drugs. By the time I got home my body felt so exhausted.

People exhaust me. I am consistently disappointed. Whine blah blah. It's strange to see someone you once loved in a totally different light. I overestimate people a lot of the time.

My main goal over the past four years at my university has been to locate the most isolated areas. Yesterday I discovered floor five of the library. Sounds obvious, but I generally avoid the library because it is usually full of stupid people. I discovered that I can sit in the middle of an aisle for two hours surrounded by early 20th century French critical theory and see no one except a couple kissing 2 aisles down.

I am reading some Georges Bataille "essays" or selected writings at the moment.

One of the texts is called "The Solar Anus" and it is probably one of the best things I have read recently. Mind orgasm extraordinaire. I found an online version here, I recommend it. It's a short read, basically a poem. Bataille is one of my favourite writers, he is a combination of everything I love...heavily sexual (he also writes pornography), morbid, surrealist, borderline existentialist but rejected by the existentialists because he's too macabre and doesn't subscribe to the Icarian Complex, post-Marxist theorist...generally...awesome. And he loves the Marquis deSade and Nietzsche but is critical of their work. *Sigh of satisfaction*

I am contemplating skipping class again today because I feel really depressed.

"A man who finds himself among others is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others.
In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the body he touches.
Without knowing it, he suffers from the mental darkness that keeps him from screaming that he himself is the girl who forgets his presence while shuddering in his arms.
They can very well try to find each other; they will never find anything but parodic images, and they will fall asleep as empty as mirrors."

"The sea continuously jerks off.
Solid elements, contained and brewed in water animated by erotic movement, shoot out in the form of flying fish.
The erection and the sun scandalize, in the same way as the cadaver and the darkness of cellars."

-Bataille

Projections of insecurity.

Are there men out there who actually like outspoken, blunt women? Initially, men like that I have a fire-y personality, which turns to passive, seething resentment when they realize I'm not some fucking character in an indie movie whose only purpose is to stir on their existential crisis and 'bring spontaneity into their life' or spur on some creative revolution as 'muse.' Barf. Yeah, I can be abrasive. Yeah, I can be brutally honest (oh, sorry, I mean a "FUCKING BITCH"). Fuck, I'm not a super person. I try really hard to be 'nice.' That's what people want, right? Sweet and nurturing, coming right the fuck up.

It doesn't help that I am incredibly awkward during the whole 'let's meet each others friends in an exciting social environment to further determine whether or not we are compatible' and accidentally get labeled a 'cold, snobby bitch.' Um, it's called social anxiety disorder/panic disorder, asshole. Notice the panic attacks. Aren't relationships about sex and not social performance? Why do all these lame social elements have to enter into the equation? The purpose of relationships is to fuck and provide 'love', but most relationships seem to provide little of either. I want more sex and more love.

I am not making generalizations about men. I love men. I have my issues with female relationships, too. But I've been ranting about women my whole life and making horrible, fear-based generalizations about them too.

I think I should start walking around with a demure smile pasted on my face and check the tone of my voice constantly so that I do not unintentionally intimidate someone. I'm not sure how to move my face when I confront strangers. What is street etiquette? Do you look down, to the side, zone out looking forward or make brief, potentially awkward eye contact? Do you make your face smile, and to what degree? Most of the time the faces I make feel entirely unnatural. I am incredibly self-conscious in public. Everyone is a stranger. I feel like a massive fucking fragile disappointment.

The world is an old canvas painted over many times.

I watched American Psycho again. I feel really violent after watching it. Predictably, I think of Freud; the fine construct of the ego as an overlay that pushes down a surplus of aggression. Sex is essentially violent, just as violence is essentially an expression of love. And love is really just a construct of the libido that allows us to fulfill our drives in a socially acceptable way. Or is it? Freud thinks so. Who gives a shit, right? What the fuck do I think? Part of being a critical thinker is to wade through the bullshit and decide what is good or bad, valid or invalid. But these are just value judgements. This is an entirely subjective process. It comes down to: what is useful for me? Is this item of knowledge going to reinforce what I want to believe about myself and my relationships and everything outside of me or is it going to challenge my assumptions? Freud makes me want to throw myself in front of a subway car due to the meaninglessness of all existence. Not really. Sometimes.

I think it is significant that Patrick Bateman’s character is defined as a “lack.”

Humans are like eggs. Our insides covered by protective, translucent shells. These shells are prone to cracking under pressure. Often very little pressure is required to instigate a break. The surface splits open and the yolk drips out. The yolk is unfertilized, suspended in fluid. Unrealized potential. Identities leak out of shells, exposed, vulnerable against hot pavement. Frying like eggs in a pan. Individuals as breakfast.

We are only fit for consumption. We are commodities bred of psycho-analysis, post-modern fragmentation, post-structuralism, post-, post-, post-. I identify with John Lennon when he sings “everybody’s talking about this-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism” and the fucking fatigue all this shit produces. I feel so heavy and infected by all this theory, turning me into a pretentious intellectual fuck. At what point does knowledge become completely destructive rather than productive? Universities are telling us to become unique, original thinkers but we’re all learning the same shit, we’re all products of the same intellectual movements, we’re all just unoriginal, pretentious fucks. I try really hard not to be self-deprecating or pretentious. I’m failing on both accounts.

Does somebody want to move to the country with me and start a farm? This is a fantasy of mine.


I like when things like this happen, like a chain:

First of all there was a third sex, the androgynous, combining the two, with four arms and legs, and the rest to match. Men had become very strong, and troublesome to the Olympian gods, yet they could not afford to annihilate them; so Zeus resolved to cut them in half to humble them. He declared that they shall walk upright on two legs, but each forever desiring his other half, so they will come together, and throwing their arms about one another, be entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one. Each of us when separated is always looking for his other half.

-Plato, “Symposium”

It seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

-Yeats, “Among School Children”

Somewhat disturbing is the sound of birds singing
when you know you don't deserve it
You’re not here today
and I feel just like an empty eggshell,
My yoke is heavy.

-Daniel Johnston, “My Yoke is Heavy”




Be happy, y’all.
xo

DRUNK. Early, lame, angsty drunk.

Blurred neon lights
drunk couples kissing on streets
mild February evenings
navigating fluorescent parking garages
laughing with 30-something couples
feeling completely at ease
standing on street corners with my eyes closed, looking upwards
my feet are torn up by red shoes
I barely acknowledge the homeless man on the corner
this city is so hostile and beautiful
the moon is swimming in my head

I am so angry at you.
You think I am too heavy. You and I are too heavy.
Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love.
This hurts like the silence of empty elevator music.
I know you are somewhere in this city being touched by other people.
All I want is your hair spread on my fucking pillow.

I can't listen to Animal Collective anymore!

You are light and easy, cultivating your angst and identity across city blocks.
I want to call you, but you don't give a fucking shit.

"When somebody leaves you, that's it, it's done, you can't call them."

Everyone seems to romanticize this.
"oh what a noble way for him to leave you"
"he's a good man"
"this is the best scenario"
What the fuck?! you're the only person who is willing to admit
"I'm sorry, I'm an asshole."
And that's all you have to say.
That's not good enough.
I want everyone else to give me reasons to hate your fucking guts.
I want to hear you say:
I'm worth it
You want me
I'm good enough
Even though I know I'm not worth shit. I am mediocre like the rest of them. You never knew how to say anything.

Your lame excuses, those empty cliches, mean nothing to me.
I hope you know that.
I just want you back in my bed.
"You always seemed to lose the spark when I was only half undressed"
I already feel that you are unfamiliar. when the fuck did you separate yourself from me?
You can replace me with any other mediocre bitch you want. You have charisma that works.

I hope you know that you're the first person I desire not because I feel the need to be with someone, anyone, arbitrarily, but because I want you for who you are.
That is irrelevant. You don't give a shit about that.
Karma?

I want to lick tears off your face.
I want to be fucked so hard that I don't feel anything
except the ache of my empty body

Everything is a fucking joke for you.
I am too heavy.
Have fun.

(I promise I won't delete this post, but you probably won't read it. And if you do, you'll just laugh at me. I can sulk if I want, bitches. Fuuuuuuuck.)

Headless horseman.

When I was crying on the subway an attractive man touched my arm and asked me if he could help. I could have said yes. Instead I just smiled and laughed in his face. He smiled back, but he looked sad. There are too many people that I will never know. So many potential lovers, friends, collaborators. Sometimes I feel scared of missing something immense.

What if I had said yes, or touched him back. What I really want is to be curled up in bed with a warm body. I should have hugged that man on the subway. I want to be angry, it's so much easier. I can't escape anything.