sexual inadequacy

With skills like that I should write headlines for the Hun.

Here's the thing. I don't think of sex as real. I can't think of any other way to describe it. I get the impression that people imagine themselves having sex with others on a fairy regular basis. I don't. I don't have a visual imagination at all, which makes it interesting. I also don't picture others having sex. So the idea of people I know having sex seems... well, absurd. Because I haven't seen it.

I know, this is crazy, but earlier this evening people were talking about sex and it weirded me out. They're friends of mine and my friends don't have sex (solipsism-much?). It freaked me out a bit. It was weird.

It's not that I have a problem with sex, nor am I embarrassed by sex... I just... don't think about it and so can't discuss it. And the idea of people I know even having sex organs is foreign to me.

And yes, I know intellectually they have sex organs and sex and for a couple I know precisely their level of depravity... but that's not the same as emotionally knowing they have sex. There's a disconnect. Because all the sex they have is... it's fake, to my mind. In the same way Africa is fake because I've never been there - because I haven't had sex with them it's fake. (Actually, my own sexual experiences tend to take on a surreal nature in memory, so perhaps this is some deep-seated psychological issue).

Anyway, point is I can't talk about sex because it's fake and that makes me feel inadequate.

Also I have a floppy penis. (For clarity: that is a joke)

rather terror than tyrany

That's my new anti-anti-terrorism slogan. I think it'd go well on a t-shirt.

I wanted to speak a little bit this evening about an old cassette (I know, pre-CD) that was playing in my parents car earlier. It contained a whole bunch of old jazz and I really liked it. I can't remember what the point of this was, unfortunately.

The other thing was about a hitch-hiker I once picked up. A man and his wife, it seemed to me. I drove them a relatively short distance before he asked if I could drop them off and wait just three minutes. Well... she had nothing of it. I didn't mind at all - I wasn't actually urgently needed anywhere - but she had that matronly, old-womanly pride. The pride of the poor when they are accepting a favour from someone unimaginably richer than they. Acceptance, but no demands, no requirements. Just... I'm not sure. It was interesting, is all. What was perhaps more interesting was that he was quite happy to do the socially unacceptable. Which I didn't mind, but anyway. Curious.

Make it go away without a word / but promise me you'll stay and fix these things I've heard

That's not actually relevant, it just happens to be what I'm currently listening to. Also, I think the italicised lyric thing is pretty cool.

what's a friend?

I've been browsing facebook recently - adding people to my list of friends. This poses a question - how well do you know someone before calling them a friend? Ben McKay has 215 friends as I type this. I have 62. My barrier has just been substantially reduced. I'll now facebook-friend anyone who has a name and face I recognise. So if I just know your name that's not enough, the same with just face. But if I know both - and preferably knew the match - then that's friendship as far as facebook is concerned.

That's really, really not what real friendship is. I'm still not sure what friendship proper is. At what point does someone go from acquaintance to friend? I used to think it was when you'd been to their house... but I have friends whose houses I've never been to. It's quite curious, as a whole.

Thoughts?

one oh one

I often feel humiliated for doing things which are "adult" when I'm not. Like issuing press releases or trying to talk to a politician. Or applying for a job. I hate it. I just feel out of place, like I'm doing something I shouldn't be. Hence my long-standing aversion to it. Not to mention the fear of rejection thing.

Ok, so now a leaf from Annabel's book. A thought purge.

Biological purpose of humour? Ducks doing standup. Anne, Mack. Almost kissing. Being right. I didn't understand but now I do. Accidentally. I shouldn't though, she'd hate it. Placing on a pedestal v actually liking. The latter, please, please, please. ([it would be] the first time). But it'll never happen. Sitting in class is more intensely political than Senate seating. Can't talk. Nothing discussed. C'est fin. This is what "thoughts" was.

watching west wing

Sometimes I really wish I could draw. As I was driving today, through the rain, I saw a group of three middle-aged-to-old women sitting in a tiny area in front of a house, with two umbrellas, talking. It was wonderful. I wanted to draw. I couldn't - I can't. But it would've made for a great drawing, truly.

I am not being allowed to take a year off university per se. I'll be just doing the one subject this semester, therefore I will be doing criminal law. It had occurred to me earlier this afternoon that I wouldn't get to spend time with the people in law. Like law girl. Who I'll never meet anyway, but it's the principle, you know?

I have a note: "thoughts". I have no idea what that means.

Oh, and finally, if you want to keep reading this, email me on michael.cordover+blog@gmail.com. I'm going to be closing it down to make it private due to my running for council. You know how it is.

Thoughts.

another quickie

Just to add to the list of TV shows I like but probably shouldn't: Grey's Anatomy and (much more embarrassingly) Ugly Betty.

Oh come on, there's just a certain charm. Not to mention the whole losers-can-do-ok angle. It's worth watching.

No, really it's not.

I need to kiss someone on the roof of a car. That's been on my ToDo list since I watched Jeux d'enfants. Like, literally, on the list on the side of my computer. Despite it being there I am reliably informed that it's more uncomfortable than you'd think, and harder to get up there. I don't worry that I have friends who know that so much as I worry that I'm missing out on knowing that.

Oh, and despite everyone posting comments as anonymous it's surprisingly easy to tell who they are. Not just style, also who would think that in response, who would say what, all that sort of stuff. It amuses me to practice that.

something completely different

The topic of this post is light bondage. Like, the sexual practice. It comes up because the bed I'm on has a metal frame which, it has occurred to me, could be used for handcuffing quite easily.

You're totally freaked out right now, you're like running for the door.

Let me explain.

I'm not into that stuff. But I understand it. I think it can be healthy. I am not aroused by the thought of handcuffs and all that stuff but... well, let me explain. I hold the belief - popular with some, unpopular with others - that sex is a "special" thing - a bond between to people. An expression of a feeling (this is traditionally called love but can, unlike the feeling most people associate with love, be transient; having sex with someone should involve, I feel, a strong attachment to them. This can fade but at the time it was still love). And this is where light bondage is relevant. Because it is about trust. Some people just get the arousal stuff from it, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the submissive side. In that position you are placing an absolute trust with another person. You are giving them complete and irrevocable control of your body. In one such scenario you're actually being chained up and the other person could do anything - anything - to you. That is true trust. And that's why most people aren't comfortable with it - because they don't get the arousal and they don't really truly trust their partner that much. To do so is pretty fucking hard. There aren't many - if any - people I would trust that much. Certainly those that come to mind for immediate consideration are part of my family.

I'm not sure what the point of this was. I just wanted to ramble about a fetish for a while. Next week, feet! I'm kidding, that's one I just don't get. Like, I don't mind feet, but there's nothing sexy there. Then again, I don't necessarily see being tied up as sexy, it's just... trusting. And that's why it's cool. I get that you'd want to show how much you trust someone. You'd let them do anything because you know they love you.

On a totally, totally unrelated point, once again Annabel's blog has said something I've often thought: "if i died it wouldn't matter, because i wouldn't really be dead". I tend to think like life is a computer game and I can just go back to a save point. Not all the time, but often enough to be worried by that. It's like I'm playing Deus Ex and I've only used quicksave, so I've only got one save point. And that was ages ago - like six missions - and I'm not sure I'm on the right track. I think I can make it through the game from my *current* position but I had more opportunities previously and I don't know that I've made the right decision. So just in case I want to keep the old save. And only when I get somewhere I know I want to be will I save again. Except that in life it's really hard to die so I just keep playing.

I think this post is perhaps the best demonstration yet that my mind is fucked up.

a long and stupid rant

Nearly a week without a post. It's not that nothing has happened, because things have. I'm going to Canberra tomorrow. I've not done all the work I'm supposed to have done. All that sort of stuff. Not to mention that my parents got home on Tuesday evening (good thing I finished the last of the pot on Monday night, hey?). Interestingly, earlier that evening I scared myself by thinking about what would happen if they died.

It was more than that. I was showering before going to pick them up from the airport. I had already heard from them when they were in Melbourne so I knew they were alive so far. But what if there was a plane crash on the approach to Hobart? What would happen? I concern myself with such trivialities, often, until they become so overwhelming as to cause me to sob. Not just cry, sob. The last time I was reading encyclopaedic and purely factual articles about the holocaust. Just wikipedia. Browsing around, reading about everything that happened, and suddenly, mid-sentence, nothing particularly in-and-of-itself bad, I started to cry. It just... it just hit me. There is a perfect (and beautiful, in a way I can't explain) description of this flowing-over effect over on another blog.

While I was writing that paragraph the same thing happened. I cried.

So yeah, I think I was saying that on Tuesday I thought about all the things that would happen if there was a plane crash. I'd press through, try to see what happened. I'd organise a funeral and occupy myself with procedural matters and work. I imagined a phone call to Centrelink asking to cancel payments to people I'm not authorised to represent because they died. I wonder how they'd handle that. I even thought about getting funeral sponsorship before I realised how ridiculous the idea was. And I'd get it all done because it would be distracting and I wouldn't cry until the funeral. I would, of course, but I wouldn't break down. I'd be a pall-bearer for Gideon - front right I think - and that's when it would start. And by the end I'd be unable to move, catatonic from the grief. I'd run out of tears and snot and everything else but I'd still try to push it out.

I wondered who I'd invite to the funeral. I only know a few of Gideon's friends - how would I tell the rest? Conceivably I'd send an email to everyone in his contacts list from his account - but how weird would that be? The thing is, of course, that people my age just don't check the obituaries. They wouldn't know about the funeral.

Then of course there's that other question: who can I invite for support? Is it impolite to invite people to the funeral who didn't know the deceased just so I have a shoulder to cry on? It's probably worse if in a drug-fuelled moment of madness you've recently confessed your quickly-dying (as opposed to undying; more later) love for them. This quick-dying love (almost, but not quite, entirely unlike quick-drying glue) isn't to say that it's any less, it's just ... it's something that is more of a friendship love that I could clearly get over very quickly in any other sense. It's me saying that this will pass, as a phase.

In twelve hours I'll be in Melbourne, presumably. I haven't packed yet. The list of things I was supposed to do before leaving and hasn't started seems to be longer than it was, impossible though that is. There is one thing I have done though. Something I did yesterday, late at night, after I got home. Something that was far more important than sleep.

I have created something to give to my next love. Proper love. Something sacred and withheld. Sort of like virginity, sort of like a particular love-song. Something that is special and will be for one person only and forever associated with that person. Interestingly like virginity, and unlike most love songs, I've created this without a person to whom to give it. That makes me feel quite guilty. Here's something that's beyond important. It's unique and special and for just one person. It's perfect and I know it is. It's precisely what it should be. And there's nobody to give it to. Of the I-could-like-these-people-if-I-tried-(or-was-drunk/stoned) group, I could assign it to one of them. But it's a tad generic. There are specific things for them - or for at least 7e-1 of them. One of which I created smilingly just the other day, in fact, Monday, I believe, and haven't been able to do anything with since. I'm going back to an Annabel-style vagueness here and it's not good. Suffice it to say that I've got something and it's a perfect valentines gift for a girl I don't yet know (or don't yet know I love).

It's nearly three in the morning. I really need to be up in five hours if I'm going to even get packed - something which is probably fairly important for this going away business. But this has been nice. I enjoyed writing it, and congratulations if you managed to read it without needing a toilet break. Your bladder is truly laudable. It's nice to cry sometimes too. We all know that.

I really need to work on my endings.

shrug

I actually think like this. Not properly, of course. Not those precise things. But things like that. Less of the "you probably couldn't name some of the things I've done with your daughter" and more of the "so, you lived through the sixties and you have a daughter... so you've probably had sex sometime... I wonder what that was like for you". That sort of stuff. The stuff I don't know about people but I could probably figure out.

In other news, to my great hilarity, I sat down to my criminal law exam this morning to find law girl sitting one space away from me diagonally, ironically exactly the same as always, to my left. I don't think I've ever seen the right side of her face. That's a lie, but sometimes it feels that way.

how things change

Before we begin I'd like to mention a very high pitched noise I'm hearing as a result of having plugged in my phone. I'd also like to say briefly that I bruised my toe.

When I was younger I had no sense of humour. I appreciated wit but I didn't find it funny. I would read Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams books and not laugh. Seriously. I loved and understood them, I just... I just didn't see them as funny. They were just good stories. And so it was that I didn't laugh when reading the Adrian Mole stories. I didn't see them as funny, I just saw them as a description of life. I quite liked them. They were educative. I'm still quite a fan of the Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4. A great book. But never one that I've seen as funny. Only some years after reading them (between when I was aged twelve and when I was aged fifteen I read them) did I read the blurb which elucidated the humour. And I see why people would find them funny. But they're not funny at all, really. They're just... real life. Or a life, at least.

Thanks to someone's blog entry I was reminded of this recently. I was specifically reminded of a time Adrian and his girlfriend break up because she won't show him one of her breasts. So he dumps her. He was fifteen by this stage, I think. (One of the reasons I found it so real is because when you're that age everything that's so humorous really is just as important as the book makes it out to be). Everybody in his class is talking about their sexual escapades and how one particular girl will have sex with anyone for four shillings and a pound of grapes (or something like that; some money and a pound of grapes). So he gets one of his friends to arrange a date with him and this girl. They go to a roller-skating rink and he wears his PE shorts because they're all he has that matches his friend's description of what people wear on dates. He takes her the pound of grapes and is unceremoniously rejected, then ridiculed for bringing grapes, since she has no idea why she'd want them.

Interestingly, I was once Adrian. Not necessarily Adrian Mole but I was called Adrian as part of an internet pseudo-relationship stalking thing that happened a few years back. Well, last year. Beginning of 2006. Crazy, crazy times. And my name was Adrian because that's what happened. And the more I think about it the more Adrianish I am. But then again other friends have said there's no Adrian to me at all. Quite possibly true too.

I'd like to move on now to a completely different topic. Conversations. I don't start them, because I don't like to be rejected. Especially on MSN. I also fear the rejection of text message or email communications where I send the last message and get no reply. It has to happen eventually but there's inevitably no "goodbye" message. So it's one of those "you hang up first" things. I'm disheartened by how often I send the last message. It could be because I always reply even when totally unnecessary but ... I don't know. It's just disappointing that I want to talk to them more than they want to talk to me. It makes me feel reliant. Like I'm being their friend and they really don't want me around. I know it's stupid - I know that, but I still feel it sometimes, to some small degree.

Sigh.

i wish i could draw

The other day, while driving, I saw the full moon, covered by translucent cloud, thus only slightly obscured, juxtaposed against the harsh light of a new street lamp. It would have been beautiful to see.

current music: R.E.M.

This morning (which was actually this afternoon, given I got out of bed at 2:20pm) I had a new experience. I carried my computer with me from the lounge room to the bathroom, playing music the whole way. The change is sound as the building changed was fascinating, but that wasn't just it.

I had the computer playing music while I was in the shower. It was great. I had something to listen to. As some of you may know it's one of my hobbies to draw on the steamed-up glass walls of the shower while I'm in there. I draw, I write, I scribble. And during one particular song (London Bombs by Eskimo Joe) I noticed that my scribbles were crying. It was quite soundtrack-to-my-life. The music was perfect as tears dripped from each letter. As time passed the tears dripped lower and the letters faded. Still visible but mere shadows of their former selves, resteamed by my continued shower.

It was great.

In other news, I'm not going to smoke any more pot until after exams. Maybe.

good days and bad.

I had a small nervous breakdown earlier this evening. I fucked up my moot, totally failed at it. But it's not the failure that bothers me. I can handle failure.

Take for example another small failing today: this morning I had my administrative law tutorial and it was terrible. The submission I made had almost no meaning at all. It certainly wasn't an accurate reflection of the law or a valid argument to make. I had be buoyed by the return of my second briefing paper (86% or a high distinction, plus a request to put it up as an example for next year's class) but this wasn't why I was ok with doing such a shitty job. I was ok with it because my preparation involved reading the question as I was getting dressed.

The moot was different. I spent five hours in the library today. Admittedly not all of it was preparing for my moot - some of it was sleeping and I also talked to Nikki (Rogers, old school friend) for a while... but I spent quite some time preparing. Reading cases, taking notes, underlining important sections. I spent $2 on printing. I wrote and rewrote. I worked at this. I didn't work exhaustively but I was prepared. I knew what I was doing. I was ready. I was going to kick arse: smash it, as they say.

But I didn't. I failed dismally. My presentation was poor, I gave bad arguments, I didn't have the cases to back up what I was saying. It was terrible. This is the problem. I don't mind failing. What sent me into shock and made me cry (well, I didn't cry about it until I was home and watching sad DVDs, so we can blame them) was that I'm not as good as I think I am. That's the great travesty here. If I work really hard and still can't do it - well, that's incapacity. I know there are things I can't do. But none of them involved using my mind. Anything that required thought I could do. Anything. Give me enough time and I could learn about Puritanism in Elizabethan England or electrical engineering or organic chemistry or gender studies or finance. This was my strength. This is what made me feel good about myself. I was capable of learning anything I put my mind to. But if there are things I can't do... that bothers me greatly. Especially if it's advocacy, precisely what I'm training to do, what I want to do. It makes life difficult.

This then triggered a massive round of self-hate and Nikky-angst and such. And the die alone business. Great fun all around.

odd socks

In my family the wearing of odd socks is a crime. It's quite curious really. It's simply not done - like taboo. Odd socks from the laundry are kept for a week or so then turned into rags, mercilessly destroyed by cleaning the TV.

I mention this because I saw someone wearing odd socks this evening and had commented on it before. It's... curious to me. Very anthropology.

I think I want to be a teacher. Discuss. Comment.

I also think that a specific person doesn't like me very much and that's fine, but I wish she did. This isn't girlfriend angst, it's ... much more complicated. But I don't want to name names or anything. It's nobody reading this I'm fairly sure.

Speaking of people who don't read this, I've decided to befriend Lucy (as she decided to befriend me). From my criminal law tute - but not Law Girl (who I again didn't even look at).

postsecrets

There are some postsecrets I really like and others I don't. I've been doing an absurd amount of reading faux postsecrets recently. Specifically, ljsecret. I'd like to show you two of them. There's the one that is something I do and there's the other one that is also something I do.

That's really all I guess.

observances

I was sitting in the ref today and Wonderwall came on the radio. There was audible singing along. Not from anyone or any group in particular, but there was definitely singing. Just the overtones of several people singing quietly.

I also observed today a girl with a Firefox bag. That's pretty cool. She did look a bit like a furry though...

the inevitable question

What's wrong with me?

Here are a few great date ideas I've just stolen from the intarwebs:

• Build forts out of furniture and blankets, and wage war with paper airplanes.


• Write a piece of fiction together. Outside at a cafe. Ask strangers when you get stuck.


• Try and visit as many people as you can in one night, and turn as many things inside their apartment upside down as you can, without them noticing.


• Hide and seek in the park


• Go around the city with sidewalk chalk and draw hearts with equations inside on random things


• Dress up as pirates, commandeer shopping carts, and have a war upon the high seas.. er, parking lot.


• Go on a search for as many good climbing trees as possible, climb as high as you both can in all of them, compile photo evidence


• In the middle of the night, drive to the beach, so you arrive just as the sun is rising. Have a breakfast picnic, then fall asleep together. Bring a sun umbrella.

And despite these I would never get such a date. Not because they're not wonderful ideas but because I'm me, and nobody wants to go out with me.

So back to the question: what's wrong with me?

in which...

... I rediscover The Killers, achieve a new pinball high score and am deeply hurt

I rediscovered The Killers, along with The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and Ben Folds Five. All fantastic.

I got TWO new pinball high scores today. Yesterday my high score was 5,514,750. Today I got 7,337,500 and then 10,215,750. I am the ubernerd.

I am deeply hurt but why is too big a question. I'm just... hurt.

I didn't shower this morning - it was too much effort.

I saw The Lovely Clara yesterday. Or maybe the day before, I can never remember when time passes. It was lovely.

altruism is dead

I know that there is no altruism. I know this for a very simple reason. Milk. Specifically, everybody gets the milk that expires latest. Even I do. I know we'll drinking it before the expiry date, but we get the "freshest" anyway, despite the waste that it causes. Every time I buy milk I think about this and decide that no, I'll be bad anyway. It'll be fine, surely.

Also, checkout chick liked my shirt - just shy. Yay!

yet another boring blog (yabb)

I'm watching the movie form of the sisterhood of the travelling pants. I don't know why I do this to myself. I guess... well, let's look at this. I have a few movies on my computer I haven't seen yet (the sisterhood being one which I'm currently seeing). They are:

- A Walk To Remember
- House of Flying Daggers
- Pride and Prejudice
- The Notebook
- Wallace and Gromit - Curse of the Ware Rabbit

There's also Magnolia, which I haven't seen in a long time. Then there are the movies I watched last night: A Fish Called Wanda, How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days and The Girl Next Door.

But I'm not here to talk about all the movies I have, or those which I want to watch. This is about why I do this to myself.

Ok, firstly, this movie is not just a chick flick, it's a mid-teen sappy chick flick. Like, we're talking uberdespicablepop tween trash. Which isn't to say it's a bad movie - at 39'14" I'm unwilling to make that judgement. I mean, it's embarrassing. I feel shame (even without another, so fuck you Satre) that I'm watching this.

But that's not the real problem. That's not why I shouldn't be watching this. I shouldn't be watching this because it almost made me cry in the first few scenes. I shouldn't be watching this because it's all about precisely the life that I keep being certain I've totally missed. I shouldn't watch this because it reinforces the mood which made me watch it in the first place - and that mood is best described as borderline depressed.

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I got a call from an old friend of mine tonight. The company he started and is running is paying for him and eight employees under him, also mostly old friends, to spend six days at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Flights, alcohol, hotels, shows all paid. Good quality, five-star hotels too. I could have been working there. But instead I chose to come back here and go to university. Sometimes I wonder about why I made such a bad decision. Maybe it wasn't horrible, generally... but I should've stayed. Life would have been better eventually, I'm sure. Perhaps. Uncertainty haunts me still.

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