drunken blogging
Okay, poppets, you get to hear my just cry out to the universe. I need to cry out, and it doesn't matter actually that much who's listening. God bless whoever was the inventor of blogs. GOD BLESS THEM!
My live makes no sense. I used to be an academic, in the hallowed sandstone halls, with wood dark-stained lintels and door jambs, and chalk boards on pulleys that pulled up and down. With all the sad, competitive, weird people who end up there. With an endless series of 18 year olds who needed to be taught basic things like if and then, but then who also tended to write lesbian separatist graffiti in the toilets.
Now I do not work in academia, I work out in the fast-paced world of the internet. And I wish that I could wear stillettos and walk all the way to work in them, and I just invested too much in expensive make-up. The person I want to be dressed very, very well, is tall and svelte, needs no more than 4 hours of sleep a night but is always sharp and full of strategic innovative ideas. The person I am sleeps about 5-6 hours a night but spends all day in her blunt dopey shoes at work thinking, "Oh my god, I only had 5-6 hours sleep! I should have had 10-12! How will I survive!" Meanwhile wearing dopey shoes and lipstick wearing off and answering the phone with a croak because I still have a bit of a cough from my long cold. How can the person inside my brain be so different from the dopey actual person on the outside?
But then, the lesson from last night is, seeking reciprocal admiration feeds into dangerous egosim and should be abhorred. Or, more simply - you shouldn't worry about what other people think.
Have experiences, he said. The meaning of life is to have good experiences. I have fucking weird experiences. How could both of those men have been at the same talk, one sitting right in front of me, one right behind? How could both of those universes have collided so closely?
Who am I? Who the fuck am I? How do I make sense of the things I've done, which I brush up against every now and again (if I had stayed, I would be living in those creepy sandstone rooms with the wood and the blackboards, still, for all this time!). How do I make sense when whole huge chunks of my life are characterised by places and textures - and people - that I so rarely even run across? My life seems very shallow. My current live is only 2 years old. But then I'm already bored with it! I hate this boring life! The prospect that I might not get an opportunity for radical, and I mean truly radical, like, stick a knitting needle through the world on a globe and start here and where the point comes out, THERE - that's what I want and the idea that I might not get it and have to make do with here, this, now. Agony! Boredom! What does that mean? How can that give meaning, with no continuity of life and the prospect of ghosts from another dimension suddenly being at a philosophy talk after 12 years and saying that they lived like two blocks from where you, YOU, ME, right now, this me, where I live now. I've had two birthday parties in this house. Two post-newly-single-Ellen-Part-2 birthday parties, with all those new people. Who am I? I used to live somewhere else. I once had a set-up date in Ocean Beach with someone who's still in the field, his best friend visiting from out of town, and because I was so bored I just drank and drank, and of course we ended up back at the place talking theoretically about sex, and of course it became practical not theoretical, and then in fact I ended up with Mono but he denied it could have been from him. The same girl who spent time in the sandstone buildings with the blackboards on pulleys sat in Ocean Beach, of all tacky places, and got drunk enough to get laid. Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Who do I think I am? How can you make sense of all this?
The curse of the expat, the curse of someone who moves around a lot.
"Geminis are great employees, but the CAN'T get bored. You can't let them get bored." - lady with whom I handed out how-to-vote cards.
There will be a federal election here, and I might not be here. Or I might. How do I make sense of any of this? What sense is there to make of it?
I just have no idea. I am drunk on a school night. I did not kick on to the Marlborough all by myself and run away from home, I came home and am here talking to you. And it's not that late. Is it. But hm. huh. My life makes no sense.
My live makes no sense. I used to be an academic, in the hallowed sandstone halls, with wood dark-stained lintels and door jambs, and chalk boards on pulleys that pulled up and down. With all the sad, competitive, weird people who end up there. With an endless series of 18 year olds who needed to be taught basic things like if and then, but then who also tended to write lesbian separatist graffiti in the toilets.
Now I do not work in academia, I work out in the fast-paced world of the internet. And I wish that I could wear stillettos and walk all the way to work in them, and I just invested too much in expensive make-up. The person I want to be dressed very, very well, is tall and svelte, needs no more than 4 hours of sleep a night but is always sharp and full of strategic innovative ideas. The person I am sleeps about 5-6 hours a night but spends all day in her blunt dopey shoes at work thinking, "Oh my god, I only had 5-6 hours sleep! I should have had 10-12! How will I survive!" Meanwhile wearing dopey shoes and lipstick wearing off and answering the phone with a croak because I still have a bit of a cough from my long cold. How can the person inside my brain be so different from the dopey actual person on the outside?
But then, the lesson from last night is, seeking reciprocal admiration feeds into dangerous egosim and should be abhorred. Or, more simply - you shouldn't worry about what other people think.
Have experiences, he said. The meaning of life is to have good experiences. I have fucking weird experiences. How could both of those men have been at the same talk, one sitting right in front of me, one right behind? How could both of those universes have collided so closely?
Who am I? Who the fuck am I? How do I make sense of the things I've done, which I brush up against every now and again (if I had stayed, I would be living in those creepy sandstone rooms with the wood and the blackboards, still, for all this time!). How do I make sense when whole huge chunks of my life are characterised by places and textures - and people - that I so rarely even run across? My life seems very shallow. My current live is only 2 years old. But then I'm already bored with it! I hate this boring life! The prospect that I might not get an opportunity for radical, and I mean truly radical, like, stick a knitting needle through the world on a globe and start here and where the point comes out, THERE - that's what I want and the idea that I might not get it and have to make do with here, this, now. Agony! Boredom! What does that mean? How can that give meaning, with no continuity of life and the prospect of ghosts from another dimension suddenly being at a philosophy talk after 12 years and saying that they lived like two blocks from where you, YOU, ME, right now, this me, where I live now. I've had two birthday parties in this house. Two post-newly-single-Ellen-Part-2 birthday parties, with all those new people. Who am I? I used to live somewhere else. I once had a set-up date in Ocean Beach with someone who's still in the field, his best friend visiting from out of town, and because I was so bored I just drank and drank, and of course we ended up back at the place talking theoretically about sex, and of course it became practical not theoretical, and then in fact I ended up with Mono but he denied it could have been from him. The same girl who spent time in the sandstone buildings with the blackboards on pulleys sat in Ocean Beach, of all tacky places, and got drunk enough to get laid. Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Who do I think I am? How can you make sense of all this?
The curse of the expat, the curse of someone who moves around a lot.
"Geminis are great employees, but the CAN'T get bored. You can't let them get bored." - lady with whom I handed out how-to-vote cards.
There will be a federal election here, and I might not be here. Or I might. How do I make sense of any of this? What sense is there to make of it?
I just have no idea. I am drunk on a school night. I did not kick on to the Marlborough all by myself and run away from home, I came home and am here talking to you. And it's not that late. Is it. But hm. huh. My life makes no sense.
posted by Ellen at 12:01 am
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