Yep, here we are again in...

Frack, frack, frack. Fracking essays to write and procrastination like I'm wading through molasses. Let's whinge!

Reasons for procrastination include:

1. The GIANT working class chip on my shoulder. When is someone at uni going to find out that I'm an imposter? I'll be sitting in the uni cafe sipping my decaf and ceiling panels will burst open and swat team style a posse of professors will descend brandishing copies of Foucault.

How did she get in here?

Well, she has read a bit....

Pffft! She left school in year 10! She couldn't find her arse with both hands let alone define poststructuralism!

This will go on for a bit and then they'll frogmarch me off campus while the silver spoon kids stare and stare.

2. I'm tired all weekend, every weekend during semester. I just want to nap or potter about online or watch DVDs. This is two parts avoidance and eight parts genuine weariness.

3. I'm scared of failing. If these final two essays for semester come back with a nice shiny P on them I'll be happy. Imagine having to resubmit work?

Ugh, better go alphabetise the pantry or something.

Go here to make your own candy hearts.

The walled garden

I'm not on Facebook, one of our dogs is though. About 6 months ago I was curious enough to want to have a look around inside Facebook but didn't want to sign myself up.

Fud has a profile and 3 friends, that's his profile picture. I used it to email a friend in the UK who doesn't seem to communicate via old email anymore, then got bored with it.

Another friend told me about people updating their Facebook status from Blackberrys every 5 minutes, X "is jogging along the beach" "is eating breakfast with y" "is farting" etc.

Here's a couple of interesting articles about Facebook which articulate the uneasiness that some of us (not very many it seems!) feel about Facebook.

Social Networks on Ning: A Sensible Alternative to Facebook by Axel Bruns:

"And indeed, I guess, ultimately that's what it is: a vortex, a maelstrom, a sinkhole - an insidious system for luring as many users as possible into taking up Facebook membership, for ensnaring their data trails, and for monetising their online activities. Facebook operates as a gated community - an AOL-style walled garden, as I noted in my recent essay for Re-Public. Its gated approach to online activity can be read as a fairly cynical attempt to hijack the hive (a strategy for extracting profit from produsage communities through participation lock-in which I've described elsewhere): its boundaries are easily permeable for incoming users, and permit outsiders and logged-off users to see just enough of a shadow of the activities taking place behind its walls to generate that feeling that perhaps they should have a look for themselves; every time one of my Facebook 'friends' tags a photo of me, prods and pokes me, or otherwise does something which somewhere, somehow relates to me, a message goes out that's designed to draw me back into the fold.

In order to really participate in Facebook, and indeed in order to even find out what exactly others are saying about you on Facebook, you must join, you must log on - and (see above) once you're in, it's very difficult to get out again: the boundaries of this walled garden are easy to pass through on the way in, but much harder to break through on the way out. Facebook is the Net's Hotel California ("you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"), or, as Jean puts it more bluntly in her post:

Whoa, what? I CAN'T LEAVE a commercial service that I never thought was super awesome in the first place and now I'm sick of BECAUSE MY SOCIAL WORLD IS STARTING TO DEPEND ON IT???"

Stephen Fry in the Guardian:

"For what is this much-trumpeted social networking but an escape back into that world of the closed online service of 15 or 20 years ago? Is it part of some deep human instinct that we take an organism as open and wild and free as the internet, and wish then to divide it into citadels, into closed-border republics and independent city states? The systole and diastole of history has us opening and closing like a flower: escaping our fortresses and enclosures into the open fields, and then building hedges, villages and cities in which to imprison ourselves again before repeating the process once more. The internet seems to be following this pattern."

Jeanette at the Opera House

I went to the opening of the Sydney Writers' Festival last night. I haven't been to a SWF event for a long time, but Jeanette Winterson was giving the opening address. If you haven't read The Passion then read it as soon as you can.

I was tired and a bit grumpy when I arrived at the Opera House. I sat watching people waiting for my friend to arrive. The usual SWF opening event crowd, lots of tasteful designer clothing, quirky glasses and expensive footwear. I sat and watched people through my own quirky glasses and judged. It's awful isn't it the way we judge other people. I think the thing that I saw last night which particularly grates is this kind of expensive fashion put on kookiness.

Women tottered past on 50s inspired highheels and I just thought sweetheart, relax and get some comfortable shoes. I'll never understand high heels, though I have to agree with a lesbian friend who said "Yeah they're stupid but it doesn't stop you wanting to screw someone who's wearing nothing but stillettos".

Lots of lesbians, in between passing judgement on my fellow attendees I sat dreading bumping into an ex-girlfriend who was a big fan of Jeanette. I didn't want to see her and have one of those awful ex-lover polite conversations how have you been? when what I'd really want to say is I'm so sorry I hurt you, I still think about it after 15 years, I'm sorry.

Anyway, my friend arrived, no awkward ex bumping into happened and we all poured into the concert hall. There were lots of welcomes before Jeanette came on. Some plonker from the City of Sydney Council thanked everyone including "you the readers" and grumpiness in full swing I thought oh get stuffed I'm a produser thanks, not some passive reader out for a bit of kulcha. You see what I mean about the grumpiness.

Then there she was. Jeanette in the flesh after reading her all these years. She didn't use the lectern, she had a headset and just held her papers in her hand. The big screen behind her in upper case plain black text read:

HISTORY IS NOT A SUICIDE NOTE. IT IS A RECORD OF OUR SURVIVAL.

My notes are bit rough and obviously not complete, but here goes. She first read a long list of wars, disasters and outrages and made the point that we are still here. Then asked what can art do in the face of war and climate change and awful inequalities? She answered that in a world that values the outside of things so much, art reverses the polarity. Art offers the "inlook", emotional capacity and imagination and the creative life that is crucial to all life, any life and the planet. She said that art is not a luxury and that art was not invented by "middle class academics on a rainy afternoon" but that art has always been there in oral history, in song accompanying terrible hard labour and in dance.

She said that art is not ornament, surplus or excess but the beating heart of humanity.

The next text slide came up:

WHAT YOU RISK REVEALS WHAT YOU VALUE.

I could have shrieked with delight when that came up, I'm getting teary just thinking about it I'm such a plonker. It's one of my favourite Jeanette lines from The Passion, go read this. She retold the myth of Midas with his golden touch ending of course in the tragedy of his little daughter running to him to be held and turning into solid gold at his touch. She then very cleverly relayed the idea that this is what we are doing to the planet in our rush to turn everything into a commodity, everything into money. I'm not doing her justice here but you get the idea. People burning now worthless paper money after an ecomony has collapsed (Iraq?) just to keep warm.

She mentioned Noam Chomsky's idea that there is currently an experiment going on. How many can be marginalised and trodden on before the whole thing tips into chaos?

She said that art allows us to make connections, make a join. When we have that experience of I never thought of it like that before we are taking disparate elements and fusing them into new essential wholes and that art making can be about confirming resistance to corporate rule.

The next slide:

ONLY THE IMPOSSIBLE IS WORTH THE EFFORT.

She talked about "mind" being a set of cultural attitudes and "brain" being where we begin. The brain wants the new, the difficult, the puzzle but then mind steps in and convinces us it's all too hard. She said that resistance to something may show something in ourselves we need to confront.

The last slide said:

EVERYTHING IS IMPRINTED FOREVER IN WHAT IT ONCE WAS.

Our DNA and our history. My note taking trailed off here as I just wanted to watch her. She said we are the story and we can change the story. It reminded me of Weight were she keeps saying I want to tell the story again:

"...re-telling stories for their own sakes, and finding in them permanent truths about human nature. All we can do is keep telling the stories, hoping that someone will hear. Hoping that in the noisy echoing nightmare of endlessly breaking news and celebrity gossip, other voices might be heard, speaking of the life of the mind and the soul’s journey.

Yes, I want to tell the story again."

Afterwards, back at my friend's place in Bondi, my friend got on Facebook and another friend who had been at Jeanette's talk too said it was "a bit preachy". I can't deal with Facebook, but that's another post.

The ideas she shared could be called pretty basic, is it "preachy" to remind people of the basics? Not when they're being forgotten, no. Winterson's parents were Pentacostals of the setting up tents and playing tambourines variety, so she's seen her share of sermons.

But if last night was a sermon, it was one we all need to hear, an essential reminder. The absolute necessity of art and the task of art to both console and confront.

More I never thought of it like that before and less idiotic consumption.

Sydney memories

I saw my GP on Friday who seems happy with my progress, he said in a month's time we'll drop the SSRI dose again. I still feel like crap physically, but the mental clarity is amazing. The catherine wheel keeps spinning and sparking. What will it be like to be on no medication? It's been three years.

Anyway with all this neuron firing going on I feel like writing more here. Yes ever- present-guilt-fairy there are essays to write, but if I read about subcultures and copyright (my last two essay topics for the semester) all day, all weekend I'll go bonkers.

I'm going to maintain my virtuous no commenting on other blogs policy until essays are done/semester is over. I miss it though, especially Grods. Woops, just commented! But I had to wish them a happy birthday.


*******

The beautiful image above is called A Memory of Sydney. It's a polychrome print by VFP Allen done in 1936. I first saw it projected on a large screen when a lovely chap from the State Library of NSW did a talk at my work in 2007 about an exhibition he curated called Sydney Harbour Seldom Scene.

Lovely curator chap said that VFP Allen was a woman and that not much was known about her except that she was an artist who worked as a secretary and the ferry trip was part of her daily commute. I think that's it. I'll write to him from work, I'm not sure I've remembered that correctly.

My mother-outlaw and I went to see the whole exhibition together and she bought me a print of A Memory of Sydney that now hangs in the bedroom here in Umina Beach. The original is small, about the size of a piece of A4 paper. When we went to the exhibition the first thing I did was look for it and walked past it several times because I was looking for a larger picture.

I've been thinking about Sydney and memories of Sydney lots lately, a new acquaintance sent me this great article, really worth a read. I want to record some of my own memories of Sydney. I get frightened of forgetting things, with good reason too.

There's been periods of my life where I was either over or incorrectly medicated by doctors. In the early days I think they just didn't know what the fuck to do with me. There are gaps in my memory caused by some of the drugs I was given, extreme stress can screw with your ability to remember too. There's an entire interstate holiday from my early days with the geek that I've forgotten. The other classic gap is me saying to my beloved BFF Andrew how much I would love to see Laurie Anderson in concert and him saying "I took you to see Laurie Anderson! You fell asleep!". I would have sworn before that that I'd never seen her in concert. Amazing.

*******

Here's a memory of Sydney.

When I was about 19, Rizzy and I, both Sydney western suburbs born and raised, shared a tiny flat in Glebe.

Glebe! It was so exciting! The bookshops and cafes and the markets. It was so so different to working class western Sydney. I kept buying too many books and eating in cafes and running out of money for the rent. Our landlady lived in the flat next door and I'd go in there and tell her we were short on the rent because of some urgent expensive dental work or some other crap excuse. It's amazing we didn't get evicted.

I discovered that curry wasn't meant to be made with Keen's Curry Powder and thought sitting reading in cafes while drinking cappucinos was the height of sophistication.

I read Nietzsche and Sartre and Camus with zero historical context and judged the world in that awful harsh way that you do when you're young and gauche and horribly insecure. I got the bus to my boring office admin job seething at what I saw as the wasted potential of my sleepy fellow commuters.

Reading Nietzsche caused me pain, I didn't measure up. Whenever I mentally pictured this ideal person I was supposed to be I saw a man, a slender but strong aesthete with arms outstretched skywards and above it all. I was 19 and slightly overweight and female, messy and mucky and too emotional.

The children in one of the houses across the road from our flat were obviously being belted around, we could hear them screaming. I called the police once, absolutely terrified that whoever was doing the beating would come and hurt us. The working class experience that you don't get involved in other's violence or they might turn on you in a second sticks with you for a long time.

Rizzy and I watched Twin Peaks in that flat and ate donuts with Agent Cooper. I'd hide behind a pillow during the scary bits and make Rizzy tell me what was happening.

One afternoon a he was coming over so we could go out, let's call him P. It wasn't a proper going out with or anything, at least not in his mind I think. I was utterly besotted though, he had these perfect teeth and this sudden bark of a laugh. I can't remember where we where going. I made Rizzy answer the door so that when he came in I could be sitting nonchalantly flipping through a magazine oh you're here style, as if I hadn't been waiting around anxious for hours for his time of arrival.

Several years later after I'd moved to country NSW, had my first real relationship, dropped out of uni, had my first nervous breakdown and come back to Sydney. I bumped into P at the Sydney Film Festival. We spent a bit of time together. I remember sitting in his car and saying "What would happen if I kissed you?" and then leaning over and kissing him quickly and lightly on the neck. We sat in my room and he read some of my poetry and then he left.

The next morning I got this urgent almost angry call from him "I have to talk to you" he said. After that I never heard from him again. When I called his house his housemate said he'd moved to Melbourne.

It was a joke for a while "I kissed him and he moved to Melbourne!". I still don't know what happened. Rizzy and Andrew still reckon he was gay or working out he was gay. Who knows?

Wherever you are P, I wish you well.

Frack me I needed a laugh tonight

Crying jags all day, this SSRI withdrawal thing is so hard, insert more boring details here etc. Cue tiny violins.

Mikey to the rescue!

The flâneur in Pitt St / How does your mind work?

Yesterday at uni we looked at the flâneur, it was both interesting and frustrating. Briefly for those of you too lazy to follow links (you know who you are) here's a wiki definition of a flâneur:

The term flâneur (or jetter) comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". A flâneur is thus a person who walks the city in order to experience it.

Look, it's a Flanifesto!

The lecturer spoke about 'spacing out' while strolling around urban spaces, there was much nodding and agreement with "You know that sensation when you just space out?". What was interesting to me as someone with sensory sensitivity issues was my thought: well, no. But sometimes kind of yes too.

For those of us who live on what I've called before that mysterious and clumsily named "autistic spectrum" of disorders, spacing out in a busy urban environment is not so easy. Temple Grandin in a fantastic doco about her life talks about feeling as if she has the nervous system of a prey animal, ears always cocked for danger / strange noises.

I can "space out" in familar spaces like home and my office at work . Sometimes on the train if it's quiet and sometimes in spaces I've been to frequently like a regular cafe (the AGNSW cafe for example) or the Botanic Gardens. But "space out" on the street? Sydney streets? Not usually.

The question I really wanted to ask in the tutorial was Do you all just "space out" effortlessly? I didn't ask of course, the question would have sounded odd.

I'm fascinated by the ability that "normal" people have to enter a space and take in the whole picture at once automatically. I had an interesting conversation with a friend about how she could go to a rave and treat the noise, lights and bodies like an ocean, just swim in it and feel safe. For people like myself, particularly when things are rough, an urban street presents so many details, noises and smells that making it into a whole or making it into something to glide through detached but observant feels impossible.

The lecturer showed a bit of a film called Hukkle which I loved because it focused so clearly on individual sounds, just like I do every day. Picking them out of the entire soundscape not just because they're unusual or annoying but just because they're there.

Of course heightened near constant awareness often leads to anxiety, stress and then illness but it's not all bad. There's the comfort of familar noises like the microwave dinging, my boss typing in the next room or the monorail running under my work window.

Frustration can come from how difficult it is to ask "normal" people how perception works for them, it's almost like there's no language for "normal" sensory experiences. I don't mean descriptions of things or metaphors, smelled like, sounded like etc and I don't mean scientific descriptions of how an ear works, but How do you space out, what are the steps? I dunno, you just space out y'know?

I'm not being fair, it's probably like asking asking someone how they burp. I dunno you just burp y'know?

The other thing we briefly touched on in the tutorial was the possibility of virtual flânerie. I mentioned the geek playing WOW and spending time exploring the spaces of the game and how it seems like an authentic experience to me. The baffling thing that often comes up when you say something like that is the assumption that you're saying the virtual is somehow better than the real. I'm unsure why these experiences have to be ranked from best to worst. The geek who is as "normal" as they come and a sensible chap just says "everything in moderation" about online time.

Occasionally I'll brave Pitt St Mall near work at lunchtime and the space feels like a shopping centre without a roof. Better for the lack of roof and fluorescents but still a big shopping centre, a place to consume. The buskers and people sitting about are just not enough to make it a space about people. Why is a place like this generally seen as a more authentic experience? We are not truly at heart creatures rushing about to fill a lunch break with processed food and consumption any more than we are virtual elves.

When I ran away to the city and lived in Glebe in the late eighties and early nineties there seemed to be more spaces about people, places conducive to wandering even for an oddball like me. During the nineties I watched King St in Newtown gradually change into a designer sneaker shop. Maybe not, maybe the young eye romanticises and I'm turning into a gen x version of a boring baby boomer lamenting the old days.

Sydney City News recently put out by the City of Sydney Council has a little piece about "Enlivening the City's laneways" perhaps hoping to copy Melbourne's laneway meme.

In other news, the great SSRI withdrawal of 2008 continues. I'm so dizzy & nauseated it's ridiculous. As I mentioned previously everything is sharper than usual which is really saying something. The other night on the train ride home I had to put my sunglasses on to block the brightness of the overhead lights. I felt like a tosser sitting there with sunglasses on at night. The geek started singing which made me feel better, dunno about the other commuters though. My spatial perceptions are odd too, I'm not enjoying stairs at the moment.

My mind feels like a catherine wheel spinning and sparking. This morning on the train reading Henry Jenkins for a uni essay connections and tangents were flying every which way.

Wassup?

Yesterday as I was stumbling through Central on the way to work I was thinking of doing a blog post mostly as a record for me of what's been happening lately. I used to keep a paper diary/journal but got out of the habit.

This morning I found that one of my readers (bless 'im) left a comment saying he hoped things are going well in EC world.

So here for myself and the reading public is an EC update:

Uni is generally going well. I could be getting higher marks but have trouble putting in the required effort to get them when I'm not that interested in the subject. I've been coasting along getting mostly credits and the odd distinction. The other day I only got a pass on an assignment and felt really embarrassed, though considering I wrote the paper in about an hour I should be glad it passed.

I have two big essays due in three weeks and whenever I'm doing something other than my paid work I feel guilty that I'm not doing uni work. However, this guilt is not enough to stop me composing self indulgent blog posts and watching Life on Mars on DVD with the geek who hasn't seen it.

Health wise things are good in an odd way. After much consultation with my psychologist, GP and a cast of thousands the decision has been made that I'm doing well enough to reduce my SSRIs. This is great as I've lived with nasty and boring side effects but had to stick to using SSRIs because they have greatly assisted my ability to function.

This is the good in an odd way bit. Reducing the dose means withdrawal symptoms, like these. I've had headaches and lots of running to the loo for the past week. The good news is that already my thinking feels sharper with the lower dose, emotions are more intense too. I'm reeling about with my usual sensory sensitivity difficulties being a bit worse than usual but things will calm down.

What else?

• Like MBB, I'm happy that Boston Legal is back. I love the clip that MBB has posted of Jerry & Shirley. The Jerry character is a joy to me for obvious reasons. The geek lurves Denny and tolerates my swooning over James Spader well. Have you seen Secretary?!? Oh. My. Goodness.

• This is great, the Autistic Adults Picture Project.

• Hellboy II. Yay!

• I've made some new friends lately, mostly through uni. Which is nice 'cause it seems harder to make new friends in your thirties / as you get older.

• The geek and I had our first real tiff about his Warcraft playing last night or more precisely about him possibly getting online when I wanted to um, well you know. I am not turning into some sad WOW widow though and we were probably due for a we're both tired and somewhat grumpy couple argument. All is well now.

• If I keep visiting the Co-op Bookshop every week after uni we may never be able to buy a house but will have the option of building a house out of books.

• To my favourite bloggers - especially the Grodsters and Jeremy - I'm still reading but trying to save time by not getting into comments thread fun. Once this semester is over I'll be back in the comments raving on and LOLing.
  

Time for breakfast.