i dreamed about you the other night. maybe yesterday, maybe last week.
(saturated fluro pinks and blues and dull orange hair and pale flesh glowing in the half-light. you leaned down and spoke to me while i was paralysed on the bed, then you vanished into other subconcious plot-less worlds.)

i wrote an entry saying how it didnt effect me untill today
(now the anxiety's set in again; shakes, nausea and the black tar of depression lurking at the bottom of my brain, memories flashing in the spaces between thoughts, the good and the bad and both tinged red with guilt.)

of course, i accidently highlighted and deleated it in a typo.
(cause im clumsy like that)
(or maybe karma telling me not to dwell on these things, and that they too in time will pass, just as the tears did dry, and the hole did fill, and the inability to leave my bed faded day by day as the pain healed slowly)

its hard to believe i still care enough to cry in public,
even with all the good things ive got.

...


maybe its just the flu

.

"in this case, a single group of leaders of the Church had created both the pope and the antipope."

<= this is why i love christianity. the drama! the conniving for power! the ultimate corruption! the hypocrisy never ends. :) the bold and the beautiful could learn a few things from religious history, am sure.

...

im about an hour away from finishing my essay at long last!!! ((then theres only one more 3000 to start and finish tomorrow, then i can think exclusively on finishing photography and then im done for six weeks! whoo!))

to get me through, this is what ive promised myself for dinner:



awwwww yeh!!!
:D

wasting time, should be writing, really not caring right now.

i dont really have anything to say, i just wanted to write the title.

something about the notion of 'art' and 'the other'...
good vs bad and beauty vs ugliness

what is the nemesis of art?
modernism? commericalism? ants?

...

"Throughout the period of modernism, art was construed as the other. Other than state, other than religion, other than commerce, other than culture industry. The other was never outside of culture but was an intergrated component of its values systems and operations."

how is something both outside and inside a culture group?
its this two faced hypocrisy of definitions that makes modernism a nightmare.
gah!

vive la revolution!

A list of Silly Things I am Afraid of:

~ sharpening knives (in case the metal filings end up in my lungs)

~ mould (ewwwwwwwwwww)

~ spray'n'wipe (see metal filings)

~ talking to people i havent met but know about from other people (?)


~ when strangers talk to me theyre not being friendly (oh no, theyre either wanting to have sex with me, or cut me open.)

~ the possums screeching on the fence at night are actually demons trying to get in my house (lol)

~tops too tight around my neck (like a noose waiting for my last breaths. scarves are fine.)

~ squid suckers on tentacles. (not the squid themselves, just the suckers.)

~ tequila.



A list of Silly Things I Should Be Afraid of, but am not...

~ walking alone at night

~ running in front of traffic

~ talking to drunk bogans 3am at the pub (its hard to disguise your true nature when youre that wasted, lol)

~ licking the nutella/vegemite/honey/etc off the knife blade (mmmm)

~ getting muffins out of the toster with forks (as long as you dont touch the sides its fine, right?)

I CANT SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WASTING TIME ON STUPID ASSIGNMENTS!

im just regurgitating, not growing, and its disgusting.

its taken me almost two weeks over when i had to hand this stupid thing in, just cause its so tedious. even though the lectures are interesting and the tutorladys great THE ESSAYS ARE SO DRY.

doing a third year course and a first year course at the same time truly makes me realize how far ive come academically. why oh why do i have to go back?!?!?!?!?!!?
((its ever so boring...))

*headdesk*

-----------
DISCLAIMER: i am fully aware of how much its my own fault for not working harder (faithfulness?) and passing in the first place. i just want to bitch. cause its suck.

where is the line between acceptance and rebellion?
when to say no, and when to have patience and wait for the light to come?
when to rise against poisonous ideals and when to just leave it be, hoping one day theyll understand?

if unconditional love can only be achieved through acceptance, where does the acceptance change and become self-preservation? social preservation? when does a misunderstanding become a war crime?
wheres the line?

~

somewhere in the past week, there's a darkness settled over me, both restless and dampening, angry and apathetic.
so far chocolate, beer, weed, mexican food and kisses have yet to shake it.

drawing helps.

~

i dont know.


...

above written a few days ago...

theres a part of me thats constantly wondering when im not going to be worth the bother anymore, a part always questioning his effects on me, if i want to deal with it, if im getting in too deep, if i have a choice or if my emotions are leading me down that dark garden path again. that if i can trust him when he says he likes me, or if hes just using me cause im here and i buy him things and dont object too much about anything.

always the wondering, the worrying, the waiting for it to fall horribly apart.
looking for (making up?) problems to flee from before it all comes crashing down on my head.
we're not in a mess atm... but at some point we will be... what then?

i dont like being this way... im in too deep now. april is our six month... its hard to be casual about it when its six times the longest ive been with ANYONE since David. i dont know what to do, feel, act. i like the boy... im just scared at how easy it all is... the warnings of gradual slide into the apathy of happiness before BAM the shit goes down.

amongst the relationship destruction that's surrounding us, im not surprised that im a little anxious about whats going on.

i think maybe im overreacting, having anger and then panic thats unwarranted.
but im really not sure.

blah...

everything in life is cyclical... around and around we go like creatures on a carousel, up down and in circles, bright colours, plastic faces and blinded by mirrors.
the great karmic wheel of death and rebirth, cycles of souls throughout lives and the smaller wheel within those lives, the passage of the seasons and tides, days following nights, orbits of the planets, rules of three, zodiacs and Tao and moon cycles and on and on into infinity...

this is my chance to start again, resolve the issues that i had last time i attempted this stage in my life. after trying and failing and traveling some world and a hell of a lot of psyche, im almost back to the start. the situations are the same as three years ago; living out of home, no job, black sheets, collaged walls, stuck to a computer screen, packet pasta with tomato and tuna, strange geeky boyfriend, still getting stoned, still drinking too much, still painting cause i cant help it, still wearing the same pinstripe jeans, still kinda lost and not sure where im going.

there are differences though, this time around i feel like ive got my shit more in order, i have more chance of passing. im stable in my house and in my confidence. as opposed to being swamped in an overwhelming sea there's a slow burning anger now that every time ive tried all ive proved is how much i can fail. i want to pass more so i can prove to myself that my brain hasn't wasted away, that i still have the smarts and the passion to carry myself where i want to be. right now im not feeling that, just a grudge against myself that i got so distracted, that i let all these other things rule my life cause i didnt know what i wanted, or how to get there.

im not as scared. im completely over working in jobs that dont help me at all... they just take in the wrong directions, waste my time and my energy and leave me stranded wonder what the fuck to do. thats not who i want to be anymore.

i want to be an artist; i want my painting and drawing skills to improve, i wasnt my visualization and imagination to improve, i want to be practicing and selling and inspiring. i want to pass my courses, i want to do well and retain the knowledge ive learned, and help it make everything i do better. i want to know the history, i want to believe the theory.

i want to teach. i want to guide people, to help people navigate this shit hole of a system into a semblance of a better life. i want to ease the confusion, and get the good vibes coming back out. i want to see us progress, evolve, grow above the money-grubbing selfish short sighted society we are into something beautiful.

i want my spirituality back. i want to study Reiki and Buddhism and Tao and Confucianism and see the beauty in the world and learn how to flow with it, to change it and to love it. i want to know it, inside and out. i want a giant purple yellow and turquoise aura, i want to be settled in my center and having a constant flow of energy in and out.

i want to eat awesome food, and stop feeling constantly starving or nauseous, and stop having nightmares and not sleeping or sleeping too much. i want my scabs to heal, my hair to stop falling out, and my feet to carry me firmly on. i want to not rely on myself for EVERYTHING, but have the flexibility to ask for help and accept it when its offered. i want to trust again, not be wary and flinching inside every time i talk to people. i want easy conversation, where i can be strong in my ideas and not so confused by the endless possibilities that i retreat into silence.

i want these edges of madness to stop creeping in... or if i cant stop it embrace it and keep going, and not be paralyzed by fear. i want to not feel so alone and embattled in my head.

but most of all, i want out of this rut that i keep falling into. i want to stop being bored, but unable to be passionate. seems the only time im alive im drunk, and then im unpredictable and barely remember in the morning. i want to feel there's something in this reality to sustain me, i want to be sustained.

((Where's your good fire baby?))
am missing things that haven't happened yet.
curiouser and curiouser.

...

it seems i constantly wander from place to space, seeking something. maybe a moment, a face, a scent or shape that will bring the saturation flooding back. sight sound and love restored. there's a sense im not on the right track, but so close in parallel the me of the other world has my hand and is walking sideways, trying to pull me through. there's something im still missing...
(something in the way...?)

...

walking through the food court today, for just a moment between the tuxedo shop and the news agency, the world dropped away. everything was unfamiliar, new and strange. blank without memory, like id never been there a hundred times before.
stuck on a pinnacle somewhere between isolation and disconnection i was totally alone, i knew no one, i had nothing. the world around a shadow of a facade, no movement, no people, just blankness and fluro lights, a distant trough of no sensation.
it was like being back in London streets, Aberdeen shopping malls, Hong Kong train stations, where civilization still exists around you, but you have no part in it, no association, just passing through onto another world.

then snap, everything was back, experience empirical again. sights lead to memory to information to thoughts to steps, mapping my way home across a city i knew. faces were real, window shopping was fun, the sky an odd colour but at least something familiar.

then later in my lounge room, again the same surrealism. suddenly im ten feet tall standing in the archway gazing on uncharted territory. the armchair not mine, the walls i painted from a different lifetime, and the couch is the smallest thing I've ever seen, a room so familiar but also so strange, so far removed from emotions or memory. like a dollhouse, and i was a Goliath in the sky.

They will see us waving from such great heights,
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
"Come down now," but we'll stay...

...

on a more mundane note; am worried about my cats.
one is missing still at 12.30 am (though sometimes he sojourns and nothing is heard until early morning then wiggly white meowing all over), and the other is passed out next to me on the desk, a dark sooking clinging cat, giving the keyboard jealous daggers for stealing my fingertip attentions.
he was in another fight two days ago, bloodied leg and grumpy all night but essentially okay. cant help but stress though, knowing what could be boiling in his blood, under the skin.
maybe if i stop thinking about it it'll be okay.

am worried that me worrying about them so much makes them worse, lol.
reverse wishes manifest and all that.
stress is silly.

...

last of the vet bills to be paid tomorrow... maybe next pay i can go buy some pants...
for serious yo.

i need another job... not just cause am ridiculously broke living on $150 a week (needless to say the rents not getting paid), but also to keep the boredom at bay. things have been getting more randomly surreal and schizophrenic... is it possible for your mind to wander away into psychosis? maybe its just the constant frustration of not having the means to do what i really want. a massage, a Reiki appointment, stars inked into my skin, clothes that fit me and nice smelly things to make my hair shiny.

cant wait for uni to start, give me something to take my mind of the nothing rut, the slow progression to nowhere.

On the bright side, life looks more like this than this, this, this, or THIS. omg random,.

would be much more fun though, if it was like this. science, skulls and high fashion? AM SO THERE.

...

right about now, ima go to bed.
grabbing a book and my one cat and vanish for a while,
eventually to slip gracelessly into sleep.

i miss my cupcake.

...

NEVER lose your sense of wonder (its not in the alphabet soup, look around)

art over apathy dammit, get off the couch

the path of least resistance is what makes men and rivers crooked

somebody's going to fall in love tonight

if just one life changes... maybe all this will be worth it

...

been browsing through my old sketchbooks...
comparatively, they kick ass. paintings, sketches, scrap booking, experiments, writings, cut outs from magazines and newspapers all over, notes, photographs, randomness, crazy captured moments of turbulence and (rarely) joy. confusion and lamenting. memories flooding all over place.

looking in my book now... the one ive barely touched in weeks... its pale and fever-stricken... starved of inspiration and slowly withering away.

i did some painting and sketching today, for the first time in what felt like forever, but with nowhere near the same intensity, the same passion and joy.
when did i become so stilted? when did i lose my connection, my love, my faith in art?
when did the horoscopes proclaiming insensitivity, cold-bigheartedness, and over-armored self-protection start to apply?

was it hormones settling out of teenagerhood, there's just not the same fire in me? was it when i stopped smoking? was it when i stopped studying? was it when my mind and spirit broke? was it after, in the process of rebuilding myself, passion was too painful and left to the side until the wounds healed? was it in exploring the greatness of the world, was i too over-awed and full of everything, i just forgot what i could do in the face of it all... and im still forgetting? was it when i became a salesman, all empathy aside for the sake of profit? was it a slow erosion... too lost, too lazy, too drunk, shotgun creativity slowly bleached bone hard by inattentiveness and lack of practice?

surely, instead of smashing dishes in the morning, it would be far better to mash paint instead? break out of the shell instead of breaking my phone. control nothing but the line. draw more read less. read more, vague out less.

less is more, more or less. cups are full and empty at the same time. the wands are damp and the swords are blunt. the earth is buried in hypotheticals.

gone. gone. gone beyond. gone altogether beyond.

its that happy place between the rest of the world and home
the ability to find anything anywhere and so much nothing-less
be anyone and completely yourself at the same time.
its hiding and shouting
sitting and flying
becoming stupider with much knowledge found.

mmmmmmm
yes its the intarnets...
and once again my home sanctuary has an anonymous portal to infinity.

for some reason, this makes me happy on some rediculously deep level.
a one-good-reason-not-to-jump-off-cliffs kinda level.
should be disturbed by this dependancy, but instead im relaxed.

i can connect again.
:D

...

im waiting.. waiting for an unknown given...

~
*
~


so they tell me im skinny
skinny in a way i dont believe
pure in a way i dont understand
choking on my alibis
not quite willing to reveal what i truly am underneath
a little bit truth, a little bit lies...

half what i am, half what i want to be
half sober with realizations,
half drunk with what everything could be given half a chance

i dont know where i am
in the grand scheme of things
but dammit if im trying to figure it all out
mixed messages in the half-light
glimpses of wonder
mixed up in the meshes of the yellow afternoon light.

they tell me im awesome
im something seen to be believed
whatever

i see it all within me
every up and every downward spiral
in the dawn light
in the evening
those darkest parts of 2am in the drunken spaces
that could be the pub or could be your bedroom home sacred

listening to the rain
and wishing that the purity within that smell
could embed itself within me
make it something worthwhile...
something beyond the dreaming...

...

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=377

morbid and beautiful all in the one glassfull

"How is it that art is always ahead of us? How is it that artists, who work so slowly, with such care and patience, who sleep in, and can't start, and don't know where they're going, always arrive before us? How is it that art knows what artists don't? How is it that art makes makers to make itself?"

--Russell Smith

http://www.unisa.edu.au/samstag/scholars/essays/02smith.asp

(also= "Art is a mode of perception that involves being always innocent, forgetting everything in order to learn again what we thought we knew")

http://www.loveoutsideandromeda.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=566
yay!

:>

...

hovering on the edge
its in the breeze now baby
its in the raindops on your upturned face
that razor edge of destiny, magnetized and fatalist
drawing you down pathways
past the wet street-lights in the dark.

i can feel the force of it
the weight of the storm
tongue like a snake i can taste it-
in my hair
in my coffee
every concrete step taken
every pressured word i write.

theres a moment of apocalypse
hiding just around the corner...

:>

(it was a great tshirt for an art student)

...

my two electoral cents; even though i am not an american.

im not sure these people know how far their reach exceeds. how many people watching from far off contiants held their breaths all day, trembling at the thought of another four years with bigoted self-interest, wars, carelessness, the whitehaired face of evil itself. they get so caught up in their own splendour, it must be hard to look beyond the tickertape and realise, on the other side of the tv screen, people they have never met and will never meet had their futures placed in his hands.

ive never had so many people come up to me at a stand before. i have never heard so many randoms say, with a glow in their eye and a relieved smile on their face- "I am so glad" "Thank god for that" "I feel SO much better now"
a huge wieght dropped off their faces, relaxed and sure the futures at least not getting any worse, and might even improve, they walked away more secure then ive seen anyone in a long time.

it was amazing to watch, (as was his speech= inspiring!) and i thank him for that.
i know hes going to do an awesome job correcting this shambles of a nation that could so easily crumble the world.

...

and now for study-moaning!! beware...


ive always had trouble with conclusions... this one is no different
have been sitting on this essay all semester, a mere 750 words compared to the whopper
3000 assignment that ive barely started.

but the referencing by far is the worst bit.
*sugh*

gaaaaaaahh... how does this always happen?
almost done though... should finish it tonight finally.
studying for third essay all day, then hiring out a camera tomorrow night, so photography pracs getting sorted.
i can do it i can do it...
then out to the pub for drinks and relaxing!
yaaaaaaay!!!!

that is all.
:P

this site is awesome. done by the ABC and monash uni on australian issues; it sounds dry and theres a whole series to read, but if youve got some time to waste (or are researching like me! :P) its actually REALLY interesting.

my essays all on australian identity and how in art we dont seem to have one, our art practice is shifting and ghostly, focussing on two seperate ideals and cultures desperately trying to intergrate each other. apparently its especially in photography (check out darren siwes =awesome) but further research shows its everywhere.

australians are caught in this cultural flux, we know where weve come from but we dont know what to do with it, everything our ancestors did to the land and to the people failed miserably. even as the future insists we evolve and assimilate were clinging onto tradition with out fingernails as it slowly slips from our grasp into a collaboration were almost afraid of.

democracy vs monarchy
tradiational classism vs radical reconciliations
rose gardens vs water restrictions and spinifex
bush landscape vs surreal social commentary
introspective portraits vs reflections of whats staring you in the face

all vying for space and position
\turbulace turbulance.
year by year we get closer
but to what...?

"Nature is posited as culture, when in fact nature itself is a cultural construction and the history of Australian landscape painting is not one of progressive discovery, the building up of an ever more accurate picture, but a series of changing conceptualisations, in which one cultural construction plays off another, in ever more complex webs of invention and in which the picturing of the local intersects with
other, including imported, aesthetic and cultural agendas."
(Anne-Marie Willis, Illusions of Identity; art as a nation)

havent these people ever heard of full stops?
dear flaming golf buggies it hurts my head to read.
isolate and seperate and read the fucker three times before it makes sense.
maybe just cause its pretty boring and my brain wanders off half way through while my eyes keep moving.
hate that.

one and a half weeks for this one, 3000words that ive barely started and then a little thing of 750 words, and two photography pracs with journals and 'research'... and i am OUTTA HERE!!!
the end is so near, i can taste it... :D

on the bright side my tutorial i read out (read; put up a slideshow and ranted about how awesome arthur boyd is) today went really well. was running really short of time thanks to technical difficulties (read; bad uni equipment and incompetant course coordinators) but it was okay. went for about 15mins but quite happily couldve gone on for an hour. :P
my tutor came up to me after and said it was "really really good".

i like when obsessing about something for two months pays off. :)

now just have to cram the next two months of work into two weeks, and ill be right. :P
mmmm good times.

two hours and its pub time. yay!
...
thats it.
:)

*
i am in here...
yet i am alive...
*

feeling more solid than i have in a long time.
sacrificing leads to security.

when its just you versus the mountain its good to know how you measure up.
them human hands pressed against cold hard stone, and human mind probing against the sky and snow...

no job no cash no time but im okay with that.
(it was in the cards)

its all about having faith in your abilities, and that giant river (of misdirect) that keeps on flowing. sometimes you can fight it, but mostly you gotta just let it flow through you, washing what you dont need away.
used to be id scour my insides with acid, neon pathways blazing in dawnlit beaches and wind and emptiness burning neurons into strungout wonder...

now its learning to stand and be strong with the tide moving in out under through and all around you.

wait while i lie in the desert and get washed away, bleached-tree bones remaining, stretching, scraping the sky...

the birds the birds...

...

i dunno.
just putting it out there.

too much coffee and im worried about the tower.

~~~
EDIT... this too, has been happening a lot lately. quiet and subversive, the peices are falling together. a good sign. :)

http://persistentillusion.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/happiness-enough-already/

found this randomly. its all full of crap.
happiness isnt a movement, to be argued for and against. its a state of mind or being.
none is happy all the time, thats why its happiness. if it was all the time it would be boring and apathetic. the fact that people are selling happiness is just ludicrous.

~

i wish my mind could be like this: (micheal kenna's pretty awesome)


instead of like this;


i also wish i had more time to work on my photography.
...and painting and drawing. and writing essays that are far more important than work.
(i dont want to work in marketing anymore)
i wish pretty things.

~

my ipod got stolen last night. along with my bank card and silly things like change and bus tickets. funnily enough i still leave all my shit lying around.

i can replace it eventually, its not the stuff that was taken that annoys me, its the taking of it. that someone thinks they had the right to just grab stuff that they dont deserve, like selfish four year olds (mine! mine!) cause dammit their dealers on their ass about a heroin debt that shouldnt fucking have in the first place. take some fucking responsibility for yourself, stand up out of the gutter and grow some balls, take your life by the reins and fucking do it right. do others right. we dont need all that crap floating around now.
it just makes me really angry when people think they can compromise (violate) others lives for their own selfish needs.

on the bright side i still have my notebook, and my house keys.
i think i would die even further if someone had stolen all my ideas.

~

im over of talking at people.
i want to talk TO people, but by the time i get to a safe place where i can be me (mostly; the pub), ive talked so much useless crap at so many uncaring citizens (mostly; work) that i just dont want to talk at all.
party (mostly; dancing) helps with the restlessness of not getting anywhere with what im doing, stops me from going mad with repressed potential, but its now, hungover and lonely that i need a good conversation. and tea. and cuddles wouldnt go astray either.

damnit.

'Better than a face-lift, to stay young we need to be permanently in a state of intellectual curiosity.'
--Salvador Paniker

also...

'Art is about the messy and marvellous business of coming to your senses - and also, to the senses of the world.'
--Leunig

thats probably it for now.
take care yall.
kisses.