I am the perpetual melancholiac
mourning prematurely severed object cathexes
and lack of sleep
hungry cats on windowsills
watching the rain
devour nothing like
humans do
I walk through glass
holding a bright room together
convening words
stab my face
bouncing around boxes
like the screen-saver
of a paused life
I escape
pounded by the heaviness
of a thick foggy night
ripped apart
by orange street lights
and subway trains.
the city is colonized by light sources.
I blame the buses:
give me back my darkness!
aureoles surround your stoned faces
under fluorescent lights.
there is light in your hands
that denies
the empty imago.
Your face is a Gestalt.
I'll be the Innenwelt,
if you be the Umwelt
I'll show you mine
if you show me yours
wink wink
Sometimes I think my body is a lie.
These pictures remind me of my old bachelor apartment. Perpetually full of smoke and sunlight. Hello Hands owns these photos.
I wrote in a notebook years ago that when an intimate relationship ends, we must formulate a new self not defined in relation to that person who is now absent. All of these selves are stacked against one another, each one linked to a particular person, a particular relationship. The result is a compound of selves, some in conflict, all of which form a discordant unity that is defined by the sum of its parts.
Then I read Lacan: “The ego is constructed like an onion, one could peel it, and discover the successive identifications which have constituted it.” Every time the Subject projects its desire into the Other, every time the Subject seeks to define himself in relation to the Other, that Other is taken in to the Self via an identification. But in the process, the Other loses its potency and becomes an empty signifier. This dialectic is not a choice, according to these dead rich white dudes.
So, the Self is formulated in relation to a lack. No objects can ever fulfill us, there is no way all the libidinal energy of the id can be exhausted in the symbolic realm, because this essentially violent energy is filtered into socially acceptable ‘wants.’ The result is a mistranslation of desire that can never be satisfied. The result is that we seek to fill this lack and each identification results in the construction of the ego. The ego is built through relationship with the Other, through this attempt to seek out what we lack, this attempt to locate ourselves in something external to us. But it’s a power struggle that is at once a negation and an affirmation…sublation.
And then Freud says that when a loved one is removed from us, we descend into melancholia, which is a process of introjecting the loved object, so that they are preserved within us. We take the lost object inside of us. And as such, our Self is formed through loss, through these introjections and identifications. The ego becomes empty when we lose someone, due to the dialectic of Self-Other, and so in order to persist as Self we bring the Other inside of us and carry on this dialectic internally. This conflict takes place unconsciously and only appears symptomatically as melancholia.
So what about the people we pass every day and project our desires onto? The ‘objects’ we covet/fuck/reject/love/hate, those people we talk to or don't but connect with on some fucked up level? Do they become a part of us, too? When I dismiss the man on the subway but feel a loss at having not talked to him, do I take in this lost object, does he become a part of me? Freud would say no, these projections and identifications are not significant enough. But what if they are?
Then I am a mess of identities swimming inside my head. Everyone I have ever looked at is still a part of me. The immensity of this gives me vertigo. Nothing and everything is insignificant.
Missed connections don’t frighten me as much as the loss of connections. Sitting beside people and looking into the eyes of men who once loved me like we’ve never hit one another, like we never touched each others bodies, like we didn’t share things, like I don’t know exactly what your body looks like naked. I want to rip open people’s brains. Let’s tell secrets all the time. I want to be wrapped up in strangers bodies.
I'm afraid of the dark unless I'm in a forest.
I'm afraid of the noises televisions make on mute in dark empty rooms.
I faked an orgasm only once. I felt inadequate and I didn't want to make you feel that way, too.
I bought a pumpkin for Halloween that is now rotting on my kitchen table. It's hard for me to throw out colourful things. I love observing decay. I have started to document the process with pictures.
I may be going on a mini road trip in a few weeks. I must fix my SLR so that I can finally take good photos again.I'm going back to sleep.
"Life is a process of taking away"
Kissing the stomach
kissing your scarred
skin boat. History
is what you've travelled on
and take with you
We've each had our stomachs
kissed by strangers
to the other
and as for me
I bless everyone
who kissed you here
-Ondaatje
Tuesdays are my long days. I left my house at 8.30 and got home at 7. One presentation, 2 papers complete. 2 more papers to edit before I fall asleep on Thursday night. I am so content and satisfied with everything right now. I guess happiness is not exciting. This post is boring, but a nice break after having finished editing and sifting through a shitload of theory and my own convoluted thoughts.
When I was fucking you, earlier, I scraped my knee on the window sill when you grabbed my body and brought me closer. The skin scraped off and I now have a large bruise decorated with torn skin. My body is a collection of bruises.
When I dug my fingernails into your back the nail on my left thumb ripped off, right where the nail hits the skin. I bled on my sheets.
Both of these events excited and aroused me.
What would Freud say about that? I know, but I won't say. I am sick of writing about Freud and Lacan. I love Derrida. There is no center!!
There is also absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
xo
ps. this blog got me in trouble. Fun shit.
Photos by Lina Scheynius, who is amazing, found via somerequired.
This photo reminds me of a Monty Python sketch or Beatles movie:
I have started listening to Brazilian tropicalia and industrial, two musical genres I know little to nothing about. So I start with the basics. Industrial reminds me that I am dying. Tropicalia reminds me that I have at least 50 summers to enjoy (give or take) before I am actually dead. Encouraging thoughts. Thank god I don`t take myself too seriously. If any one knows much about either, drop me some suggestions. I dig Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Einstürzende Neubauten, Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso. My interest with industrial is a natural progression, considering how much the genre influenced drone, noise, dark ambient, minimalist-electronica, post-rock. All of which I love. I hate genres. Today is beautiful. I am going to the park to read Lacan and Freud.
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.)
When I forget to take my meds I wake up feeling like my chest/heart/whatever the fuck/it doesn't matter has been pounded by a large hammer. I can't tell the difference between emotional and physical pain. Why am I awake at this time?
"I want to go back across that sea
with my hands out
and I will rise from the water
though I'm cold and wet I will be clean
I want come back from this robbery
with my hands up
and lie down and be handcuffed
take me I'll be yours
dripping wet
just try and hold me
I am dripping wet and limp"-Mount Eerie "With My Hands Out"
I feel uncomfortable associating people with things and sounds. And things with people. I think it's unfair to the people, and unfair to the objects.
My favourite prof, sexy Loebel, was comparing Descartes' and Hegel's versions of the Self in relation to Other. He described Hegel's Self as a cubed prison; portions of the Other, of alterity, are embedded in the walls. The construct of the Self cannot exist without the Other encased within it as an essential component of its form. Yet we try to pretend that the Other does not exist within us. And occasionally, we hear the Other screaming at us, hidden from sight within the walls.
He said that this is the root of paranoia and anxiety, when we hear these noises and are forced to confront the fact that the Other is a part of us. We are not safe and self-contained within this prison of Self, although our whole existence is occupied with perpetuating this illusion. The Self is a prison of our own construction that simultaneously limits and preserves us. He said the entire pharmaceutical industry is based on this collective desire to keep the Other at bay, separate from the Self we construct. He also said that paranoia is pure consciousness, not limited by self-consciousness. Everything comes at us, and we are unable to filter what is harmful to the construct of Self. Self-consciousness is awareness of consciousness. Consciousness is purely receptive, not reflexive. When we are reflexive, this is when the editing occurs, we start to monitor. We can choose what to believe or what not to believe about ourselves and other people, we can start forming an identity. But this identity is a fiction. We attempt uniformity of self, when in reality we are a multiplicity. We contain multitudes. Who said that? Walt Whitman. Is there any reason to feel afraid?
Anyways. This image has been floating in my head since yesterday's lecture. And I dreamed that I was trapped in a cube with a former lover. The walls were covered in little drawers. The cube would rotate and we were forced to adjust our bodies accordingly. The drawers would all slide open as the sides moved and the objects they contained fell on us. There were so many different things, covering our bodies, filling the cube. In one drawer there were tiny pieces of glass that got stuck on the top of my feet, and I picked each one out and ate it. The cuts made a pattern that I found beautiful. I eventually escaped. I cried because I knew the man never would.
This dream is a combination of that Hegel analogy and this ridiculously awesome but poorly-acted pseudo philosophical movie called The Cube. My psyche works in ridiculously obvious ways. At least I'm not dreaming about luggage that is too heavy for me to carry alone anymore. That went on for three months. Ha.
My dreams are the only thing that hinder happiness. It always takes me a few hours to recover, and usually they set the tone of my day. Anyone who has ever slept/napped with me knows this.
"And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed
before a million universes."
"This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you."
Bon soir, lovers.
xo
The body spliced by parentheses
Your limbs, slivers
sliced by the sharp arch of that question
mark:
(your places)
(your possessions)
the Other disintegrates against the tyranny of language
People like fetuses enclosed in the womb of syntax
we are all premature
The period pulls you into mourning
decapitation by punctuation
a miscarriage takes place
between those lines.
You shove me between parentheses
or add a comma separating now from then,
soon, later.
Future selves convene and fold the other into boxes
rejoicing in proper nouns
slinging quotation marks like bullets
*
February is being good to me.
C., thank you. You have no idea how much I needed that.
What the fuck am I doing.
I am pleased and happy.
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.
Spring Nostalgia Playlist.
Saturday Night We Went Swimming and There Was Light In the Water - Atlas Sound
What We Are - I Create Soundscapes
Black Lake - Real Estate
Love is Strange - Sic Alps
I Will - The Beatles
The Purple Bottle - Animal Collective
This Aching Deal - Shocking Pinks
Beach Point Pleasant - Ducktails
In the Flowers - Animal Collective
In Teen Dreams - Ancient Crux
Say You Miss Me - Wilco
(I Wanna Be A) Dumbcharger - Guided By Voices
Try to Remember - The Apples in Stereo
Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games - Of Montreal
Jeepster - T.Rex
Motion Suggests - Pavement
Muzzle of Bees - Wilco
Playground Love - Air
Suburban Beverage - Real Estate
The Warm Current's Pull - Blind Man's Colour
Flesh Canoe - Animal Collective
-Patricia Waugh
Photos belong to A Fötos at flickr.
Yesterday was delightful.
I am back to school for the first time since the strike ended. Back to reading Derrida, Auster, Lacan, Freud, Barthes, Eliot, Waugh, Ishiguro, Ellis, Lovecraft, Acker.
I survived, heavily medicated, practically floating around campus.
I also modeled for the salon yesterday. Wardrobe was skinny jeans with suspenders, bare feet and a nude lingerie top with huge, ridiculous amounts of fabric swirling around our bodies and attached in strangely creative ways. Makeup was heavily pink and girly. So I was dancing around the salon with a huge fabric bow pinned to my boobs, covered in [moderately subtle] body glitter, eating as much free food as possible, sneaking out for cigarettes and trying to explain my tattoo to the other girls. It was surprisingly fun. And I was familiar with the photographer so I felt comfortable. The runway was covered with daisies and floating candles. The theme was spring. I don't do girly well. But I do miss spring.
I'm kind of obsessed with the film Breakfast at Tiffany's right now. I've watched it several times over the past week. I really dig the final scene. I'm a sucker for romance.
This quote is super dope (cheesy, yes.):
"You're chicken. You're afraid to say, 'Okay, life's a fact.' People do fall in love. People do belong to each other. Because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, yet you're terrified that somebody's gonna put you in a cage. Well, you're already in a cage and you built it yourself. It's everywhere you go. Because no matter where you run, you're always going to end up running into yourself."
-Sexy dude who falls in love with Holly right before he jumps out the cab to look for her cat and then she runs after him and they kiss in the rain. I think there is much truth to this. Sometimes cliches are good. Good for the soul.
