No Regrats.

 Kinda forgot about Blog until i saw Laurence start his new one so i thought i'd say some stuff. hi Laurence if you are reading this. I am enjoying your posts so far and excited to see you continue to write. 

  anyway I am currently on the train to London from a small English village called Deanscales, where Sessel's mum's cousin (?) had us stay. I'd put a pic of the beautiful countryside but i havent taken them off my camera yet so you'll have to close your eyes and imagine. Sarah & Rick-and-dogs were so incredibly hospitable and kind so us during our two night stay at their old farmhouse. We stayed for free in a separate cottage where they usually have holiday-ers pay to stay. We had two actual home cooked meals for the first time in a few weeks, including home grown veggies, local lamb and pheasant, and homemade parsnip wine. 

 I'm listening to Bladee on my mp3. I downloaded 333 and Crest. My favourite songs off both albums are:

333: 100s, Mean Girls, Valerie

Crest: 5 Star Crest (4 Vattenrum), White Meadow, Desire is a Trap 

 Not sure why it took me so damn long to hop onto Bladee cuz this Awesome yay. make me want to get up and dance. 

I'm admittedly a little bit Sick o_O My throat started hurting near the end of our stay in Edinburgh and i told myself it was because of how much i'd been smoking but in the back of my mind i knew that that morning i left the hostel with wet hair. have been ignoring it and keeping warm and drinking lots of water but my sinuses are Clogged and my ears are kinda blocked... le sigh. think it's one of those things you just have to ride out so ride it out i will. i will not let it fuck up our trip! 

 In terms of day to day activities across all countries in the itinerary, Sessel and I made next to no plans. our approach has been to show up and ask anyone we can for suggestions; convenience store workers, hostel stayers, people we meet randomly, bartenders, etc. So far it has seemed to work out pretty well and i believe we will continue to employ this strat in London and finally in Amsterdam. For this being both of our first trips overseas by ourselves, i think Sessel and i have been quite resilient with fuck ups and problems we've encountered, which there haven't been many of, God Bless. 

i've been spending exuberant amounts of money on this trip. Lots on gifts for people, of course, which is taking up quite a lot of suitcase space that may compromise any future purchases. also doesn't help that everything out here is double the price in AUD. That being said i am very happy with all the gift and personal purchases i've made. No Regrats. As i said i'm having a lot of fun out here but I'm getting quite tired and dare i say homesick. I miss my dog. and my PC. and i miss my friends a lot. I miss home. It's a strange and new and exciting time of my life and i don't feel prepared for it but i know it will go on even if I'm not ready. 

Our train will pull into the station any minute now. 

Thank you for reading i will speak again soon!  

Last Minute Family/Shower Thoughts/Hunger&Love

It has been a while... i've been so busy post-uni-semester and haven't really found the time to actually sit down and think.

It is Christmas Eve. 

We did not decorate the tree this year.

Tree sat in garage for three weeks and was only put up two days ago.

Yesterday each member of my family confided in me their lack of gift preparation.

Like last year, I said "we really need to start preparing several months in advance."

i love you and you and you and you

        last tuesday i spent my four hour gap between my two classes aimlessly wandering around the city listening to neutral milk hotel. i'll link it here if you want to listen, https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nOx8AXAeiL92BmZv5ss13uKbkWGRXs79E&si=vwyBk-qcikQRZJi3 

i was thinking a lot about the recent anti-immigration protests--nazi rallies, let's call them what they are--and felt incredibly overwhelmed with. red. and blue and green. mixed together into an awful Mud. i already knew i was going to blog about it but to be honest i have been at a loss for words and a week later i still don't know how to express anything that i'm thinking and feeling. i write and i delete and write and delete and delete delete and stare at blank screen and cry and wipe my tears and feel my pulse and decide to let images speak for themselves. 

 

Valueable Update

        I am in State Library and my laptop is on 32% because I did not charge it over the weekend. I have been conserving the battery very unwisely (watching It's Always Sunny season 17). I could probably ask if they have a charger for me but for some reason the thought of asking is bringing me great nervousness. Today must be Excursion day because every 10 minutes or so, a large group of school children barrel through the Create Quarter where I am sat. Amber and I spontaneously met for brunch which became lunch after the wind had its way with us up and down Elizabeth street before deciding on Japanese. I think I ate too quickly/much because my tummy hurts. 

        Tuesdays are long but today is particularly drawn-out due to an even earlier wake up time to account for replacement busses and a group study meet at 4:30, followed by more replacements on the way home. Luckily for me, Sessel stayed the night and gave me a lift to Caulfield, and I'll probably miss the after-work-rush on the way home meaning I'll get a seat on both the train and the bus. 

        I am still figuring out what the best way to spend the four hours between my two classes is. I know the correct answer is studying, whether that be catching up or pre-reading or whatever, but I don't want it to be. I have decided to keep my camera in my bag again to take more every-day-pictures but it's kind of embarrassing to pull out my stupid little digital in public by myself. I know will get over this once I start.

        I don't really have anything valuable to say today but I want to talk.

        I don't want to talk/think about sad things all the time so I think it is valuable to talk about normal things even if it feels pointless. 

         My tummy doesn't hurt anymore. I am going to go outside.

 

BAITBALL.

i close my eyes and hold my arms against the box like a prayer

He screams back at me like an answer.

i feel out of place but i am not scared when my eyes are closed.

he is stirring the water and the movement agitates the sand until the sand is the movement, 

flowing and spiralling and leading and bruising and swirling and falling and picking up again,

a beautiful unspoken acknowledgement of camaraderie through strangers’ eyes in the light pushing and pulling strangers’ bodies in the dark and

i am wrapped up and whole! i want to feel like this forever!

how can it be that everything is in its right place even with no calculations?

they continue to push and pull like the answer.

when it comes to an end, the sand settles to the bottom again and he settles too.

i want to know what he is thinking.

he is on his hands and knees with his head down in silence, 

like a prayer,

and like an answer we scream back to him

sealed

Last month, my mother was out of state for work. She returned a few weeks after my birthday. I was out when she came home, and then she was out when I came home, but had left in my room a paper bag with some birthday gifts which she had bought while away: snoopy socks, "the little prince" enamel pin, a sewing book. And a small birthday card that had not been opened. i later expressed my thanks for the gifts. we did not hug.

I have been thinking about the card for a month. i am not a unique victim to the clash of anger and empathy for one’s mother. She mothered me and i know her— she believes that Sacrifice is the ultimate expression of love. i know that she knew that whatever generic short message she could conjure up would be a waste of a card, and that i could use it better for someone else, and this is why she gave me a still-sealed card for my birthday. sacrificing my birthday card will be beneficial in the future. i want a blank card to use for someone else more than i want words from my mother. i know this because i understand how she thinks and operates (and this is how Her mother thinks and operates). this knowledge does not make it hurt any less. in fact, the worst part of it is that (and this is the small voice in my head speaking now) her logic is kind of correct; i probably Would make “better” use of the card. and maybe this suggests that I am completely projecting. or maybe i have spent enough time with (and without) her to understand her and maybe shes spent enough time with (and without) me to understand me. she is also wrong, of course i understand what her intention was, but obviously a blank birthday card does not make me feel loved . its hard for me to imagine that she does not know this. maybe it is foolish to think that i know her like Code. she is not code.

Lol. i write this and fear i am getting far too Dear diary,. It is so freaking easy to just press post and share vulnerable thoughts on the internet because i forget that real people can read it and then also talk to me in real life. to be fair this IS something id usually write in journal but im at the end of my current one and i dont want to start my new one with this kind of energy, you know XD so anyway. i’ll write optimistic stuff soon dont worry! This only plagues me at a minor degree however i wanted to articulate it a little bit to stop thinking about it. like when you have a song stuck in your head and you listen to the outro to get it out or whatever.

all words are made up.

    i've said this before but i don't and have never really considered myself a very insecure or anxious person. Which is weird because there has always been a third, secret, unexplainable thing that has weighed on my soul so heavily since i was a child. 

i have spent a long time realising that that thing is shame.

      we talk so much about insecurity and not enough about Shame. Call it a bias, but i think that shame is a far stronger weapon than insecurity. So many cans of worms could be opened here and i'm wondering if i have the will right now to use them all to catch the Fish, you know. I don't want this to be a self-pitying sob story and i hope it isn't taken as such, but for me (thus far in my life), shame is a trump card of all my emotions. 

above everything there is shame. beneath everything there is shame. built on a generation built on it built on it.

    Every facet of my identity that plagues me can be more or less attributed to shame;

    All the things I don't like about myself are a result of shame;

    i am ashamed of myself.     (o_O)

It feels like unlearning internalised shame is like, fucking impossible. It's hard to not just wallow in self pity and call it a day, a week,, a year,,,

    and then it's been a few! and you look around you and youre like, what fucking happened? (nothing did, that's the problem.)

    My shame is quietly souring my beliefs, it's rotting my teeth, and watering my joints, pinching my lobe. the way Your shame feels about you feels about you feels about You. it's so easy to do nothing but Everything is all there is.

 

doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

3/05/24 mate lock in