Lede

King of Cups, when reversed: The dark essence of water behaving as air, such as rain clouds in a gray sky: A pillar of maturity and patience, hiding a deep insecurity and an indecisive nature. One who secretly lusts for power, but lacks the courage, intellect, or work ethic necessary to take it. A charming seducer who appears innocent and understanding, but is in fact selfish and unfaithful.

forward, please

This is depressing me, wearing me down and sucking out my energy.
So, I've had a bunch of aspie friends, relatives, lovers even. Some of them before people talked about it at all much (we just realised they ticked lots of boxes afterwards). It never really bothered me - or, well that's a total understatement, I never even thought about it. Au contraire, I seem to get on really well with aspie types. Autistic kids, too, back in the days when I used to do that. Actually, I grew up being able to talk to just about anyone, in a one-on-one situation when it was just them - the shyer, more reclusive or "weirder" the better, no matter what flavour. Maybe that's why I'm good at interviewing now. Or I always had the aptitude. Something. It's from my Dad, a bit. Maybe. I remember someone (ah! that particular someone :) *sigh!*) saying, "How do you do that? Talk to people like that - you just sort of click into where they're at?". I don't know the how. I think it probably stems from a genuine interest in people -- everyone, everyone, everyone has an amazing story.
What's the problem now? Now...I just, really, wish I knew what to expect. Because I've been waiting for things to get better for oh, such a very long time. And there's a complicated layering of denial in there somewhere, too, that pretends we're ok.
On the other hand, does it matter? Not everything is excusable because of a syndrome, right?
Wait, no, that's not it. It's not about whether I keep banging my head on the wall, it's the angle I bonk it on (heh). I don't care about a having a piece of paper. But maybe I'm trying to fix things in the wrong way -- in many wrong ways, totally alien ways that will just get things nowhere. Nothing's changed so far, so that would seem to fit the overall diagnosis. So, now what? What do I need to move forward? How do I try? Because being stuck in the same old place isn't going to cut it for terribly much longer.

things my mother taught me

- that i am better than everyone (for some obscure, never-quite-explained reason)
- that i could be so much better if i actually tried and put some effort in

so now, i'm a snob who can't can't connect to anyone with chronically low self esteem. and i try and do everything myself, 'cause the perfectionist is never happy with the way anyone else does it. and then i'm always hopelessly disappointed in my own efforts.
round we go, and round we go, and round we go again.

“Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes around. We're the rocks. And what happens to us – the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse – why, that's just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.” – Chuck Palahniuk.

anima

your house is so suffused with love
that visiting's good for the soul

gah

dammit! i try really, really, really hard for it not to matter, and to be positive, and...everything. and i'm STILL petrified of needing anyone at all, ever. for anything. or asking. why??? it stops me being me?? gah.

touch

sometimes it feels like i can just reach out and hold your heart in the palm of my hand.
and sometimes it feels like running my fingers through lemonade…fizzy and sweet and tingly.
and sometimes it feels like trying to hold on to broken pieces of china as they crack and break and slip out of my hands.

...meh?

I'm having trouble making myself care about anything today. It's weird. Most of my emails are unopened. The paper is unread; online news ditto, and most of my feeds also. The Masters work I was supposed to finish is barely touched. I couldn't read more than a few pages of any of the books I'm reading. Nothing on TV held my gaze, although, well, that's hardly new. And I ignored the phone. It's all kinda meh. Why meh? I'm kinda tired, but not hugely. I hurt an old back injury yesterday, but not massively...there's no good reason to be so flat and blah at the world. Did someone put prozac in my tea?

.......

and then

except then you get there, and you think...okaaayyy...now what?

next?

neruda

When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:

I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands

to pass their freshness over me once more:

I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.



I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.

I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you

to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,

to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.



I want what I love to continue to live,

and you whom I love and sang above everything else

to continue to flourish, full-flowered:



so that you can reach everything my love directs you to,

so that my shadow can travel along in your hair,

so that everything can learn the reason for my song.

running out

i seem to be pouring myself into everybody else right now. it makes any time alone - really alone, doing something for me - seem kinda precious.

Can't sleep.

Sometimes I feel like my heart will crack, and all the me will run out. And then there will be nothing left.

reach

...lady lights a cigarette, puffs away, no regrets
takes a look around, no regrets no regrets
stretches out like branches of a poplar tree
says "I am free", sings so soft as if she'll break...

grope

there's a pattern of silence i get into, and i'm doing it again.
when even i can't make myself talk.
but there are silent shouts and screams just under my breath ... sitting at the back of my throat. coiled quiet against the terms of endearment and the swallowed tears.
articulate, prithee, speak? nothing. i just open and shut like a gaping ... ha, fish out of water.
grope, gasp, grope. shhhh.

gehaftet

.....but i am so much more!!

Houston

Boss: "We have a big problem, now."
Me: Oh? (Thinks: Oh, crap, what didn't I do now??)
Boss: "Yes. The thing is, this issue you've done is going to be so good, you'll have to live up to it somehow in the next issue."
Me: ...

...Okay...There's the arse-about compliment for the day, then. Um...woo!

pavane pour une infante defunte

sad, tragic even, things keep happening to people that i love. cancer. death of a husband. car crash. death of a parent. miscarriage. death of a child.
such important parts of their existence. of their identity. we structure our lives around the tender tendon connections and then when they’re torn they leave an aching, open, hanging void.
and...i can’t help, or even begin to salve. it feels so helpless! part of me wants to be the good-in-a-crisis type (like frideswide) and run around making casseroles and phoning people. sending flowers and making lists. the other part...thinks responding in any other way rather than in person, with hugs, just seems cheap.
think. what did you want people to say to you? what did they say, that helped?
...nothing helped. i just wanted someone to hold me and rock me while i cried and cried until i until i couldn’t cry anymore.

light

oh, yes, that's right. that was the really good reason not to fall again. because the light it casts throws everything into sharp relief, and suddenly you can see all the gaps and holes. and aching voids. are they always there? just patched over with little cobwebs of denial? glossed and daubed with a carefully balanced apathy that seems real enough to dance on most of the time. because underneath is far too real.
i wonder...if you could live in the deep of the underneath all the time. and not got mad? probably not. it would be too intoxicating. or maybe there isn't a division, really. 'praps it’s all the same, just different angles. different light. falling at different times of the day...or night. ha, that reminds me of
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

awake

sometimes
when i stay up (like this)
(for days)
or, at least, a night and a day and a night and a day
i wonder whether you even realise that i'm not sleeping next to you.

prank call.

hey, you.
gutless wonder
why not
have the guts to say
i know what it is you want, but i can't give it to you.
or
there is something i need to say, but i can't find it.
or even
i can see where it is you ache, but i can't even deal with my own pain, let alone someone else's.
and
why not
have the guts to not be afraid of people loving you. especially loving you in different ways.there are lots, you know. they don't all require you to give away part of your soul.
or not.
stay up there and away, it's easier anyway.
so, are you ever going to actually engage? yeah, me neither. it's way easier just to float along the surface of the plebs below and graze when you need to. they'll never know, right?
isn't it such a damn drag when everyone else is so inferior?
stay disengaged, bubble, disconnected. hangup.
hangups! oh, yes. yes, people are so transparent, aren't they? you can put your fingers right through in some places.

argument

i shouldn’t compare
i shouldn’t set you up to fail
i shouldn’t create tests in my mind
thinking you should say ‘this’ when i say ‘that’
and crumbling when i don’t get what i ask for

i shouldn't hope that one day you will just love me, and say just the right thing
should i?

my bright companion

ONLY in my deep heart I love you, sweetest heart.
Many another vesture hath the soul, I pray
Call me not forth from this. If from the light I part
Only with clay I cling unto the clay.

And ah! my bright companion, you and I must go
Our ways, unfolding lonely glories, not out own,
Nor from each other gathered, but an inward glow
Breathed by the Lone One on the seeker lone.

If for the heart’s own sake we break the heart, we may
When the last ruby drop dissolves in diamond light
Meet in a deeper vesture in another day.
Until that dawn, dear heart, good-night, good-night.

fly away home

sometimes i think it would be nice to have people when they are flying high and at their peak.

so often i come to people when they in the dark, or in a rut, or have lost their way somehow. and we work through where they’re at, or try to, and i am happy to delve if it helps, it makes me explore myself too. all of which is good. but sometimes i wonder if it would be nice to *also* have the happy flying yay and smiling times…. rather than just sending healed hawks out to zoom around with the others and watching like some stupid big-sister figure from the window. why can’t i go out and play too? well? what stops you?

i'm sure i don’t go looking with that goal in my head…to heal and hand over. i think. nor do i go looking for the lost and the lonely. well, i don’t think i do. i used to wonder if i somehow searched out the saddened because i needed to see problems that i could fix, hearts that could be heartened. well, i can’t fix them. like my own fixings, all that has to come from inside. i suppose i can lend my mining gear :)

but still. i wonder what it is that i project that says, over here! and then, game over, insert coin. if i could find it, and pinch it off at the source, i'd probably make people a whole lot less uncomfortable.

...that thinking makes it so

what do you expect of people?
what do you expect when you talk to someone?
enter a deal? a conversation? a contract?
share a joke?
how do your expectations alter what you get out of the interaction?
how do they shape how you feel about it afterwards? during?
if you reach out, do you expect to be responded to?
will you reach out anyway, if you get no response?
for how long?

:)

talking to you
makes me feel like i can change the world :)

live, love, laugh

"The best art and writing is almost like an assignment; it is so vibrant that you feel compelled to make something in response. Suddenly it is clear what you have to do. For a brief moment it seems wonderfully easy to live and love and create breathtaking things....in a sense, these are assignments -- in the same way that the ocean gives the assignment of breathing deeply, and kissing instructs us to stop thinking."

I like this project. Simple things. >> learning to love you more

i will find the strength somewhere.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centred;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

betrayed

and you can tell you've been hiding from your pain
by the way that you say your name

i really need to shake off this thing, this feeling of betrayal. it's just...energy sucking.

not paving

apparently tis the season to resurface. a whole bunch of people popped out of the woodwork recently. some friends, some, more than friends. some not very friendly. people i sort of thought i wouldn't see again. well....that's not completely true. but it was unexpected anyway.
i'm wondering whether i reached out and opened up and made that happen. or if it was just...serendipity. or something.

and...i'm not all that sure how to move. how do you move forward, after moving on, while looking back?
maybe you just don't look back at all. just forge ahead and see what's there in the here and the now.

tightrope walk

soo.....i either get lost in my own nothing or drown in someone else's everything.
how do you balance, again?

hit it off

v.i,1: To get along well together; to be compatible; to work well together; of people in interactive situations.
yesssssss
this is going to work
and
it makes me feel alive!

"You! You’re a real journo, you are."

connect for

everything
everything
everything
everything
everything
comes down to connection
making a connection, feeling it.
warming. deepening. broadening. making meaning.
tying it, them, they, to your heartstrings.
breaking it. leaving it
them,
they,
we,
dangling in the nothing.
letting the edge go. after. away.
and pretending you can still find yourself.

because?

why
am
i
so
god-damned
nice
to
people?

en masse

this faze
this euphoria
this crazed girl
dancing along a string

this haze
this utopia
this hurly-burl
such a pretty thing

this maze
this dystopia
this foul unfurl
losing everything

these days
these collosia
to hide and curl
or stand and sing

vendettas

?! that was weird.
and now....help, what have i done?

for walking

i wear boots!
and they make me feel tall
so i can stride down the street
and not feel so very small

leave

oh! this breaks my heart, because
i love what i do

i've discovered

....that when i get really excited, or worried, or i want something lots and lots and lots, my vision gets slightly blurry. not enough to make me blind, just.....unfocused. tres weird. ironic too...cause those sorts of things are usually very um, focussing.

trickle

let me
crouch in the cooling water
while the light drips
over the windowsill, tripping
the shades of fantastic
between tasting tin and the ecstasy of inside apart.

wild swans

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

recoil

recoil
v.
To jerk backward, as a gun upon firing: rebound. To draw away involuntarily, usually out of fear or disgust: blench, cringe, flinch, quail, shrink, shy, start, wince.
n.
An act of drawing back in an involuntary or instinctive fashion, in alarm or horror:cringe, flinch, shrink, wince.
Also n.
The backward action of a firearm upon firing.

In most small arms, the force of the recoil is absorbed by the body of the shooter.

shiny ghost

i wear my grandmother's wedding ring
if i forget to i
can still feel the
ghost of it
curling round my finger
i remember...her hands, so well.
hands, hair and smile.
some days it seems to shine more brightly than others.

jumping jacks

...what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.

chord

there's a girl playing piano in the theatre behind my office today.
she's good.
oh, sometimes i miss playing so much that it aches.

fiend

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.

wake

....i just had the strangest dream
that you were real.

a beautiful lofty thing

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.'

surface

so…
now i have some bruises
just under my skin
and if i put my fingers here and here
(like so)
it tastes like…midnight

strange, but

love
makes
me
sad

diversity is nuts

before 10am this morning, these had all passed my desk. whew.

squid
bushfires
stem cells
marine ict
squid (*again*, what the hell)
built environment planning
devil facial tumor disease
disposal of human body parts
aggregate media analysis
maritime law
aboriginal remains
innovations research (/mutters...)
aged care
corporate finance
japanese whaling policy

1966

oh my gawwwd!
icky freaky game for girls

things

some heartache/kept me awake

love
i take a very long time to be convinced
(which often makes things too late)
and i was so very sure
that i could live without the big fall

hurt
if i
(pinch of salt, leap of faith)
kiss you on the bits that hurt
will it make everything ok?
will you even feel anything?

heart
absence makes the heart grow fonder
so they say
they don't mention much about the cold
or the empty
or that damned ache where
i miss you so much it hurts

hold
what i have i hold...no, not really
what i have i disbelieve
right up until it does the disbelieving for me
mostly i can hold memories in the palm of my hand
cradle against them for a warm smile
sometimes it's like gripping water...
...the flimsy slips away, i want for the real thing

ache

ache, ache, you live for the ache
that reminds you you're human
and wanted
and alive
but then it snaretears you
and catch-unawares you
and leaves you adrift
staring into the night

i keep getting to the edge and being too afraid to cross over. it's so much easier to keep everyone distanced and boxed up as abstractions...i get bowled over with the shock if i find out someone's actually thinking about *me*.

whispercroon and jazz

i heard this at the end of a french short film, being sung in a jazzy-fem kinda style, and i couldn't pick why i knew it until i realised it was words, not melody. sounds different when elliott smith whispercroons it.

Drink up, baby, stay up all night.
With the things you could do, you won't but you might.
The potential you'll be, that you'll never see.
The promises you'll only make.
Drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days.
Do what I say and I'll make you okay and drive them away,
The images stuck in your head.
People you've been before that you don't want around anymore.
That push and shove and won't bend to your will.
I'll keep them still.
Drink up, baby, look at the stars, I'll kiss you again-
Between the bars, where I'm seeing you-
There with your hands in the air, waiting to finally be caught.
Drink up one more time and I'll make you mine.
Keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest,
Where I like you the best.
And keep the things you forgot.
The people you've been before that you don't want around anymore.
That push and shove and won't bend to your will.
I'll keep them still.

made in egypt

some or maybe one of my edges
is made of sand
and when i lie down i
can feel myself trickling away into the nothing
grain by
grain by
grain.
sometimes it tickles and i just
idly wonder
when it will all flow back
other times
it makes me forget how to play