s once told me that her mother had said that she never felt that this was her new home until she gave birth to her first child. then she said to herself: this is home now. that idea terrifies me. of being somewhere half-heartedly, kind of longing to leave but not knowing if you would ever be able to. when i was away i knew i would return, so i went about knowing places as deeply as i could while i had the chance. had i just found myself there, exhiled, not knowing whether i was staying or returning, i think i would have broken down.
i feel like i’m kind of losing my mind in sydney at the moment. i’ve never found myself in a situation like this before. whenever i have changed place (only a couple of times) i have always set about immediately rooting myself into that landscape. high school took me out of place but you were out of place amongst other lost boys. the same thing happened in europe. of course coming back was different. because i entered into something that was formed an functioning. the hole i left in it had healed back over in my absence. because i refuse to settle into/for living with my parents, i have to maintain this sense of placelessness. this unbelonging. it’s like standing with your stomach muscles flexed. and it means that i do it when i relate to people too. not everyone. but at times i reflect that coldness onto people around me. when i know what i’m doing, where i’m going, where i’m staying, i think, might be able to treat you properly.
at the moment, i feel hyper-sensitive to the spaces that i inhabit. and usually, uncomfortable. the room on level two of building three, for example, has about six or seven rhythms of cold. there is the air-conditioning that quivers against itself with the circulating air, kind of like a thin, closed hi-hat. there’s the stomach shudder of the lift as it slides up and down the building throat. every time announced by the sick wane of its bell. one ding for up. ding deungggg for down. the computers in the corner hum like they don’t want you to realise, but if you listen, they don’t shut up. they just move up or down in frequency as they think more or go to sleep for a bit. then there is the bubbler, which has another motor in it somehwere, keeping it’s dribble-flow cold, and my brain on edge. there are other breathings that i can’t pin-point. but it’s like feeling someone inhaling beside your shoulder. one thing that worries me is that i’m feeling a similar sensitivity to my uni writing. a sensitivity that actually goes too far and doesn’t let me write. because there’s a tightness in me. like asthma.
August 29, 2006 at 3:05 pm
It’s the difference between how welcoming someone is, and how welcome you feel. When you’re in that pseudo-homelessness (“between residences”) it’s easy to put someone out without feeling particularly comfortable, and thus, your thanks might not equate to their hospitality. Last year I stayed with K for a month. “Never again,” I believe, were her parting words.
As for your last two words, it’s like you put them there with the specific aim of adding another category to the post.
August 30, 2006 at 3:05 pm
aden, that’s a terrible tale — i never knew such things! though i feel your jab at joel’s asthma segue as some kind of techno-tag bloodlust is a little rich.
which reminds me … joel, what exactly is the function of the categories? i once clicked on the link and it took me to a very dark place which i did not understand.
August 30, 2006 at 3:05 pm
You know what else is rich? Food… in salt.
I’m sorry.
August 30, 2006 at 3:05 pm
ugh aden, really …
August 30, 2006 at 3:05 pm
regarding asti’s question (of course disregarding aden’s pun) i don’t really have any theoretical concept about what’s great about tagging or categorising posts. basically, i do it because the function was already on there when i started, and if i don’t do it it comes up with uncategorised. from what i can gather, it does a couple of things. first of all, it sorts my personal posts by category, thereby enabling you to click on one of the ‘categories’ in the bottom box, and see all my posts which had, for example ‘fuck’ as a category. now if you click on the links below the actual post, then it will lead you into some weird categorised world, and tell you who else has been using the category ‘fuck’ in their posts. thing is, most categories are way too vague, and some people categorise every third word in their post, so you seem to get real disparate shit. i haven’t found much use to that yet. the last thing that can be done with it, is that wordpress or whatever can tell you who else is using similar tags to you, and you can go read their stuff, presumably like market research’s ‘you may also be interested in’ thing. however people have made it across to my blog following the ‘fuck’ tag trail. in short, i don’t see much point to them. and i certainly wouldn’t waste my time writing a big long comment about them.
September 14, 2006 at 3:05 am
A good blog you got there! I’ll bookmark and come back later.
Keep up the good work!
Eddy