bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no

Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go

No room for wankers

Got involved in a femme flare up with homophobia last weekend.
It was fabulous and fun to stand up to boganic drunks.
My friend took the "best ever" award when she threw her drink in the face of an obnoxious and unwarranted slander.
My jaw dropped. That usually would be me.
I did threaten with stiletto action.

Had drunk idiots screaming "katy Perry! katy perry! katy perry!" at me.
Fuck off.
Nat would have sung the wanker chimes... "Waaaanker waaaaanker"

then we went to moni's apartment and dirty blues danced until the wee hours.

i love my friends.

thank heaven for little girls. No?

songs cant get out of my head

driving me bats baby

you driving me bats baby

another plane flies through a cloud
I hear it loud

we are all alone
waiting for a mircale to come

lying in our beds

waiting for a miracle to come


cant help it baby
I just love hanging round with bad company
everybodies talking
and everybody's giving birth to something

another plane flies through a cloud

I hear it loud


we are all alone


waiting for a mircale to come



driving me bats baby

you driving me bats baby


ooooooooooh



oooooooh oooohhh ooooooh oooooh

Q and A

Hopeless heart
How do you mend yourself?

rotten

things can turn sour. not just milk or yoghurt. but fine things. you thought never might.

You wanna fight for this love

But honey you cannot wrestle a dove

and baby its clear....

Puppets of Patriarchy?

“The media are instrumental in the process of gaining public consent. Media texts never simply mirror or reflect reality, but instead construct hegemonic definitions of what should be accepted as reality.”


Iconic Emblems of Female identity: Prophets of Post-Feminism or Puppets of the Patriarchy?


I want to look at the ways in which the media manipulate public conception of social ideals and cultural representations. In particular, the ways in which highly gendered, overly produced and highly constructed female celebrity persona’s present packaged attitudes to the media consumer. The ideologies suggested by these celebrity iconic females are often constructed from a foundation beyond the ideal representation of woman you see on the stage before you. These ideologies in fact have been heavily crafted to seduce consumers into a comfortable position of non-resistance.

The two cases in study are highly gendered depictions of women in mass mediated popular culture, pop music performance artist Lady Gaga and burlesque icon Dita Von Teese. I will argue that the facets of a new kind of feminism suggested by Gaga and Von Teese are borrowed , distorted, parodied and marketed as accessible attitudes for young women, ironically wrought with contradictions that render them hegemonic. (Shugart & Wagonner, 2001)





Through the misrepresentation of principles of post-feminism, third wave feminism and the phenomena of Girl Power (or an amalgamation of all three), the consumer is fed a constructed set of attitudes that imply progressive movement but are so contradictory that they have the opposite effect and work to compliment an antifeminist system. By appealing to the interests of a demographic of consumers and dressing up commercialism as a brand new feminism, there is an adverse reaction. The message is confused and consumers are lulled into believing that they celebrate and even partake in socially progressive antics, but in actuality they are nullified by means of paradoxical contradiction.

I will discuss, in particular, these characteristics of assumed new feminism and explain the ways in which they are negated:

I. reclaiming traditional modes of femininity that would be considered tyrannous by second wave feminists in a way that implies subversive politics, (e.g. Highly maintained femininity, fetish fashion, wonder bras and makeup) whilst being heavily immersed in popular glamour culture and the fashion industry (e.g. Eccentric and exclusive costumes, branding an image.)

II. largely interested in sex – positivity, sexual self exposure and female empowerment (e.g. burlesque performance and sexualized video clips)


By analyzing these elements of Von Teese and Gaga through the eyes of the consumer to whom they are marketed, I will discuss these facets of a new feminism and how iconic representations of women are used as marketing tools to sell not only products but a values system and in turn implement a patriarchal value system. I will expose the very obvious nature of conflicting motions in Von Teese and Gaga’s attitudes and in doing so unveil the industrial construction of celebrity for the sake of capitalism and reinforcing patriarchal values.

Looking at the characteristics I have described above, it is not difficult to correlate such ideals with representations you have seen in popular culture. They are out in the thousands, young female celebrities who are unafraid exhibitionists, self assured, stiletto donning, corseted, sequined, girlishly glamorous, outspoken about sexual diversity and blasé about gender bending, ‘don’t take no shit’ daughters of divas who own the pop scene and stick it to the authorities, refusing to fit into heteronormative housewife and homemaker boxes. From Lindsay Lohan to the Pussy Cat Dolls, from Pink to Lily Allen, pop culture icons are announcing their power as sexual and feminine entities that define their values on their own terms in magazines and on television screens around the world.

It is difficult to deny then, that this excess of confrontational ‘in your face’ feminine sexuality vogue resembles characteristics of feminist beliefs that followed the backlash of second wave feminism.
The three movements I will refer to are post-feminism, third wave feminism and Girl Power discourse. What I am analyzing is the implicit facets of these three movements that seem to appear in representations of women in the media and not the movements’ themselves. However, in order to understand how such beliefs are represented in icons such as Von Teese and Gaga, it is important to recognize the origins of these social movements.
Post feminism, coined in the 1980’s, was used to explain a counterattack against second wave feminism, adopting an analytical approach to subsequent feminist discourse and spoke for women who essentially concurred with the ambitions of feminism, but did not identify as feminists per se. (Rosen, 2000) Post feminism supposes, amongst other ideas, that gender is an artifice, a constructed image and therefore performative in its very nature. It is this supposition that I will examine further on.
Third Wave Feminism, beginning in the early 1990’s, sought to dispute definitions of femininity set out by second wave feminism, which repeatedly classified women with a unanimous female identity, which was predominantly middle class and white. This approach lets women identify their feminist ideals on their own terms, embracing gender diversity, sex positivity and self assurance. (Freedman, 2003)
The Girl Power discourse, taking the lead in the 1990’s with icons like The Spice Girls and Xena the Warrior Princess denotes a sprawling media culture that tells women they can be empowered by identifying as conventional feminine objects and at the same time as strong feminist agents. Power is achieved by the use of sexuality and beauty over men and through the expression of one’s determination. (Zaslow, 2006)
Born out of these movements and into the celebrity spotlight is a copy cat medley of common ideals represented in highly produced icons like Von Teese and Gaga, that highlight the concept of individual success but seem to ignore the objective of collective political outcomes. For the sake of succinctness I will refer to this set of amalgamated ideals expressed through Von Teese and Gaga as new feminism.

In this development, power comes from the “choice making of individuals rather than from structural supports or systematic change.” (Zaslow, 2006) These icons communicate a laid back freedom and power over their selves, flaunting material symbols of wealth and femininity that make up their ‘individual’ identities.

Lady Gaga and Dita Von Teese, paradoxically, whilst using the language of choice and freedom, delegate a narrow set of hegemonic options for young women with which to build their own gender identities.


Role Models Remodeled: Reclaiming Traditional Modes of femininity: Subversion or Slave to the System?

“Imagine being considered not for your mind but for how you look. Sort of fun, don’t you think?” Dita Von Teese

New Feminism (representing ideals of Third Wave, Post feminism and Girl Power) celebrates conventional ways of being feminine, particularly in the sense of the aesthetic. To be pretty and lord it over men is a powerful weapon in mass mediated culture.
This new creed of thought promotes the idea that a woman can be feminine and sexual and not be confined to the trappings that traditional femininity once bore. New feminism makes extreme femininity subversive, as if to say – I assume this image because I like it and I feel powerful. Men are attracted to my femininity, but I make my own choices.

My cases in study typify this dolled up aesthetic, whilst still touting their independence from patriarchal control. However, in replicating this tenet of new feminism, as products of the marketing industry and therefore rife with conflict in their message, these icons fail to substantiate any real grounds for political action.


On visiting www.ladygaga.com, I was transported into a glittery galactic and highly gendered experience. Gaga stipulates she is going to – “infiltrate human culture one sequin at a time”, instantly defining her power through unfettered feminine guiles. (www.ladygaga.com)

I was mesmerized by images of decidedly stylized pulp culture femininity, an avante garde pop fashionista extravaganza. YouTube clips, interviews proclaiming her love of fashion, clinging costumes of neon colours, thunder bolts, diamante leotards and legs in heels flashed all over the webpage. The site is littered with highly produced and synthesized music and it’s Gaga leading the procession of pop with the lyrics “Lets have some fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick”.

Instantly, there is a persona emerging for the consumer to indentify with.
The system of Celebrity is at work. (Marshall, 1997)
Marshall suggests that, driven by the culture industry, celebrities “transform and transfigure themselves… present a moving subjectivity… enigma about their authentic selves” (Marshall 1997)
The idea is that there is a concept of “individualism” at work, where the persona of Gaga is constructed and sold to audiences as a feminine ideal. Bold, brash and over stylized.

In her “Poker face” video clips she is writhing by a poolside in scant and provocative outfits, donning the dress codes of the conventional feminine aesthetic, where the female body is the focus. She sings about winning over lovers and being the all powerful young female icon of self determination.
What these images put across is power in traditional modes of aesthetic femininity emerging from wealth and individual choice. Lacking, however, is the shared desire for real social change. The extremely feminized images fail to communicate the political backdrop of new feminism and its indefinable nature and only propose a limited set of ideals for women to relate to. A white, middle class beauty that is attainable through wealth.
The sexualized female body is the focus, and feminist politics take a back seat. The ideals that are appropriated by Gaga are rendered a masquerade of new feminism and ultimately negate the purpose they appear to have. Furthermore, as endorsement vehicles of brands such as M A C cosmetics and Wonder bra, Gaga and Von Teese merely propose ideals of power in femininity for the purpose of capitalism, inserting them into the dominant paradigm and making use of them as puppets of patriarchal values.

Upon visiting Dita Von Teese’s webpage, I noticed she is constructed of an old world aesthetic, a vintage darling with an overt and glamorized feminine sexuality.
Von Teese with her passion for corsetry has been known to cinch down to 16 inch waist, has fervor for fetish costume and traditional feminine attire such as stockings and lingerie. With red lips, stiletto heels and classic pin up dress code, she sports an aesthetic that draws on the concept of individualism, advertising her persona within the culture industry.

“She is one of a kind. She is the biggest name in Burlesque since Gypsy Rose Lee. She tops international Best Dressed lists. She is a modern day Fashion Icon. She inspires designers from Marc Jacobs and John Galliano to Jean Paul Gaultier and Zac Posen. She is credited for bringing back the glamour and allure of Old Hollywood stars. Self-created. Distinctive. Iconic. Flawless. Often imitated, never duplicated. She is Dita Von Teese.” (www.dita.net)

“Women’s engagement with their looks is interpreted as imposed by patriarchy for men’s gratification” (Frost 1999) however Von Teese suggests that the notion of women enjoying hyper femininity is liberating. (Betts, 2006)
Von Teese stars on YouTube in glossy lingerie ads and striptease burlesque performances and in interviews where she promotes her created femininity. The idea behind this constructed beauty has a vague resemblance to subversive notions of post feminism of performative gender as an artificial craft. “I use make-up and hair and all these magical feminine tools to create something I am not. I like the idea of artificial beauty…dying my hair black and wearing make up and heels is a security thing for me. I feel completely strange (without it). This is what I do. This is what makes me me.” (Betts, 2006)

At first glance one might mistake this apparent subverting of gender paradigm as new feminism, reflective of post feminist ideas of reclaiming a connection to feminine beauty and power. What becomes more obvious at closer speculation is that Von Teese only promotes one type of beauty ideal and performed gender. A westernized feminine beauty ideal that is only a marginalized percentage of the femininity post feminism celebrates.
The system of celebrity (Marshall, 1997) places these feminine aesthetic goals in the realm of capitalism by Von Teese’s endorsement of beauty products and bosom enhancing undergarments, ultimately making her a marketing vehicle of not only products but a set of attitudes, hence part of a patriarchal value system. She can appeal to a set demographic with her monochrome beauty and sell products accordingly. She proposes a tenet of new feminism that may seem appealing to a group and therefore assumes iconic status of that group’s ideals and interests, but celebrates new feminism through individual action and falls short of any collective social movement. By binding this one type of gendered beauty to what is thought to be a new feminist thought and doing it conspicuously through a celebrity persona, the belief is rendered hegemonic.

Showing the girl: She only reveals what she wants you to see

“Being a woman in the pop world, sexuality is half poison, half liberation. What’s the line? I don’t have a line. I am the most sexually free woman on the planet, and I am genuinely empowered from a very honest place by my sexuality. What’s more primal than sex? I mean, it’s so honest. If I didn’t think I had the talent to back that up, I wouldn’t have done it.” (Lady Gaga)

Sex positivity is a big part of new feminism. There is much importance placed on women exploring the freedom and self navigation of their sexuality’s and sexual expression, to be in control of their bodies, the ways in which they are sexualized and the ways in which they are sexually revealed.
Both Lady Gaga and Dita Von Teese personify glamorized and self determined overt sexual expression that rings true with the new feminist tenet of sex positivity.
Von Teese, as the iconic spokesperson for modern Burlesque, herald’s sex positivity and feminine sexual expression as a way of “women being inspired to find their inner bombshell and have fun with it” (Von Teese), giving them a sense of sexual empowerment.
In order to unveil the contradictory nature of these appropriations of new feminist characteristics, I want to briefly put burlesque dancing in a historical context as to examine the political suggestions behind the art form, and then highlight the discrepancies with the modern versions of such politics we see in Von Teese’s burlesque performance and concurrently in Von Teese as a celebrity persona entity.

Burlesque was considered a bawdy type of theatre later transpiring into striptease that flourished between 1840 and 1960. The first female burlesque performers “instigated public debate on the proper display of female sexuality and forever changed the face of theatre.” (Pullen, 2005) Burlesque was originally a male dominated arena and the addition of women into the picture brought up conflicts about the kinds of theatre women could participate in.
“Lydia Thompson and the British Blondes (one of the first all female burlesque troupes) were reviled in the press as…real threats to both US-American womanhood and theatrical tradition. The Blondes, inadequately described by labels of actress, whore or feminist, offered new ways to think about female sexuality, ones that exceeded familiar narratives.” (Pullen 2005)
Early burlesque was controversial as women performers often played the roles of men and the humour was tongue- in-cheek, laced with sexual innuendo and vulgarity. The revealing costumes drew attention to female sexuality.
What has made burlesque feminist is its unashamed spirit of sexual revolution. Burlesque displays the female body but supports female sexuality from within rather than concentrating on a limited concept of beauty that represents only objectified bodies that exclusively match westernized standards of beauty. It discards the conception that sexuality can only be established within the narrow range of western male ideals and instead acknowledges the sexual appeal of all women.

Von Teese advocates these ideals but she herself is constructed in such a way that ultimately cancels them out. The paradox lies in the fact that the burlesque icon, Dita Von Teese, supposedly representing the subversive nature of this new feminist celebration of women, epitomizes the westernized standards of conventional feminine beauty that burlesque is said to refuse. Von Teese assumes this facet of new feminism at a surface level, but only offers one form of beauty for women to regale in: a white, middle class, thin and surgically enhanced femininity. By only offering this standard of beauty and failing to represent the plethora of diverse femininities that burlesque is said to celebrate, the ideals of new feminism that are appropriated by iconic media persona’s, in this case Von Teese, are distorted and sold back to the consumer and in turn become antithesis of what they claim to be.

Lady Gaga exemplifies a similar irony in her video clip ‘Paparazzi’.
The clip starts off as a farce of an old style film, set in a beautiful villa with a balcony that over looks the ocean. The scene is picturesque and refers to glamorous and affluent lifestyle. The romantic opening scene sees Gaga is depicted as the celebrity star; the man we assume is her boyfriend is Paparazzi. They are in bed entwined in each others arms. Gaga asks “Do you love me?” He answers “Of course I do”. They engage in a passionate embrace as he slowly removes items of Gaga’s ultra feminine and glamorous clothing. He carries her outside and sits her in the edge of the wall of the balcony where they continue to kiss and touch in a highly sexualized manner. Photos are being snapped of the two on the balcony. The scene escalates, becoming dramatic, his kissing becomes more forceful and rushed and she asks him to stop. He keeps going; she struggles to get away until he bashes her and throws her off the balcony.
Whilst Gaga defines her sexuality as “fierce”, and her music empowering to women, exemplifying tenets of new feminism by way of overtly sexualized and glamorized imagery in her video clips, Paparazzi contradicts the values Gaga seemingly stands for.
With images of rampant sexualized violence, Gaga only serves to illustrate that even though such tenets of new feminism may be represented by her celebrity persona, there is no real social change, and women are still victims’ of the trivialization of rape crimes in the media. With the mixture of sexuality and violence and hints of brutality, the difficulty in differentiating between the passionate embrace in the beginning and the violence that follows and a number of women featuring in the clip that appear to be dead or injured in sexy clothing, ( Sut Jhally, 2009) the resolve for any type of resistance to the patriarchy is reversed.

As mediums of mass marketing, both Gaga and Von Teese personify a particular set of ideals so that they appeal to a generation of interests. Sex positivity and sexual self exposure are appropriated in the examples I have given and marketed to the consumer but are rife with contradiction, causing them to enforce patriarchal values rather than free women from them.


I have shown you the ways highly gendered representations of females in mediated popular culture adopt codes of new feminism (post-feminism, third wave feminism and Girl Power discourse). These packaged ideals are marketed with such inconsistency that ultimately these appropriated feminist values are decorated, commodified, and put on the market for us in a way that render them hegemonic. The viewpoints they project are presented to the consumer with such oscillating contradiction that they become akin to the dominant paradigm they appear to resist. The result is that feminism is misrepresented by popular culture production into an organized array of cultural signifiers that carry meanings of individual autonomy related to feminism but do not equal an actual social change.

Insomniac

2.15

still awake

is sleep deprivation constructive for creativity?

i want sleep to hold me

A movie in my mind

I heard a secret today about a woman who is close to me. Very close.
It was something she was doing that was particularly demeaning to her. Or rather something that was being done to her. Something unpleasant and almost abusive. But consential none the less.
There is a strong visual in my mind.
It made me so sad.
Its a secret so I cant let on that I know.
I wish more than anything that I could tell her that I know.
That she doesnt have to do those things.
To please never do them again.
That she is worth so much more.

I am sure she knows.
We all have dark moments.
Moments of self loathing where we can allow things we perhaps would not normally.
I want to protect her.

How can I when the world is so huge and I am just one tiny speck, and things happen, things keep rolling whether we like it or not?

I can only be an example. A strong woman. A powerful and brave woman.

Doesn't help the sinking feeling inside of me... today.

Coming Along Nicely

she thinks her breasts are coming along nicely.
just right. for a girl of her age.

i am a big girl. she thinks.

i dont need a story.
but some nights i get frightened in my bed all alone.
can I sleep with daddy? she thinks.

she

thinks


too


much....

its not fair and i think your really mean

its not fair and I think your really mean
i think your really mean
i think your really mean

i am dreaming of all i have come to know

and if i hadnt what would i think?

shy heart
angry heart
little heart
full of lies

deep shadows


im sad

for I have lost

a lot

Learnings

Hard to swallow, make one's throat swell, pulse rise, head hurt.
Move between indifferent to crazy angry to devastated back to angry.

Why

Oh


Why?

When Betty saw Butch

A grimace is the best description. A flick of the wrist, my cigarette lit from the hand in a french cuffed sleeve, when I had looked beyond the boi for the fire.

And then ,

after the grimace, (a look we femmes know so well, but one would never shatter the illusion)

an inscription

on my neck. I felt his eyes burn there, longer than usual.

It said

For fingers to be wrapped around
delicate flesh
and hold you down
whilst I devour you


It was getting late and until this fine boi caught my eye I was imagining the inside of my eyelids where all the stars turned out in their finery, the star studded cast of my dreams.
The moon fell upon the rim of his hat and reflected off his one gold tooth into my eyes.

A white sports coat and a pink carnation began to play, and dancing would be too much of a cliche for this moment.

He leaned in as I dragged on my cigarette to ask me my name.

I breathed it into his collar "Betty"

I waited with baited breath for a name in return.

"Well hello Betty..."

true heart

In the dark
In the musty damp
In a place where feelings fester
that i cannot suppress

this little girl has a secret purpose
secret simplicity
secret want
that dare not speak its name

don't

get

caught


this is the place were demons chitter chatter
in the dark
in the night

its also the place were trust grows
like a pot plant for a little girl
to look after

to water
and nurture

and not forget about

and treat with care


so that it may grow tall and strong

and shade her in the summer time
casting shadows in the dirt
painting our reflections on the dam

A secret desire
so embedded in pain
but so far removed from it

keeps whistling my name
my song
my soft lullaby

and I am safe

in the knowledge that one day I will find it
live it
trust it
know it

to be my own

Homophobia : The rubix cube

Why do I feel different, even when my lesbian friends are concerned by comparison?

Why do I feel like a modern amalgamation , a deranged and morphed reflection or a twisted cardboard cut out.

I spent some weekend time with some lesbian friends of mine.
We hadn't seen each other for a long time. A friend from Sydney was down and we went to hang out in their place in the suburbs. Far out from the burrows of the city.
The girls have converted their garage into what looks like an old English Pub. With a fully stocked bar in the corner, a dance floor that is coloured like the pride flag, disco lights, full sound system, couches and arcade games. They tell me they stay home in the bar each weekend rather than going out and facing the nightlife. And understandably so.
They also tell me there are three young straight women that live next door, who have never met lesbians before they moved in seven months ago.
They drink in their bar quite regularly, donning cocktail dresses for my friends and flaunting newly aquired lesbian jokes.
I think to myself "This will be interesting. I wonder what they will do with the concept of Femme"
I assume they have made a neat little box to put lesbian in and my friends fit it. I cant even attempt to climb into that box and shut the lid. My stillettos will puncture the cardboard. The lid wont close over my high hair.

When the girls turned up, they were uncomfortable. They were territorial and suspect about the foreign women that were taking up space in what was to them, their space.
The differences between us were very obvious. They were not quite sure where to put me. I knew I belonged outstretched on the bar singing torch songs. But they were not aware... yet.

Interestingly enough, this time they had men in tow, even though Sarah had said they never brought men before.

Ill give you three guesses as to why.

If you are queer you will most likely get it in one. As later we tried to explain to the girls, us queers have been experiencing this type of homophobia all our lives. Even though the girls felt comfortable with our suburban lesbian friends, they did not yet accept or understand their complex identity in it's entirety, which included butches and femmes and sexually liberated women who did not swoon when a drunk footyhead bloke who resembled livestock would refer to their breasts in an obvious and lewd way. Who did not welcome the men to sit down and at the very least have a crack and who did not hesitate to tell them exactly what was staring everyone blindly in the face.

So the girls brought boys, who behaved like pigs.

I became known as "the singer", as if I was ordered in to entertain the heathens, and they refused to learn my name.

As they got drunker, I heard one of them stage whisper "Yeah, shes hot. And shes a lesbian!"

Like side show freaks in our own freakin space.
I felt crazy angry.

When one guy tried to make a pass at me, my Sydney friend and I told him firmly, not welcome, thankyou.

That caused an uproar and almost fisty cuffs.
A butch amongst us asked one of the straight girls "Please can you get him out of here, it's causing everyone grief"

She threw her hands up and said "I didnt bring him here"

Well. We didnt bring the men. So take some fucking responsibility.

Finally he was kicked out.
By Sarah, who was behind her own bar, watching this whole thing unravel.

I have experienced homophobia in many places. Rarely in a lesbian home.
We ended up keeping to ourselves in a corner, so as not to disrupt anymore bad energy.

The girls were scrubbers. Homophbic and revolting. The men were inexusable, and of course, exused by the women. Which makes me ill.

Sarah went over to them the next morning, as she needed them to move their car.

Some of the men were still lounging around at the scrubbers place.

A bloke says to Sarah, " Hi Roger"

She says "Roger? What the fuck?"

He says "Oh, I thought Roger would be a good name for you"

I mean really, his humour is so base, that was the best he could come up with.

She brushed it off and said "Yeah whatever mate"

And he fiegned a cower and said "Oh dont hit me man! Dont hit me!"

What kind of stereotype is being perpetuated here?

I'm revolted.

And Ill never be part of that again

Crazy to witness.


A bizarre experiment, but I don't think I will play guinea pig again.

Butch and Betty : The beginning

Betty was mine as instantly as I set my eyes on her. She could have been anybody's, in a room full of lazy liasons between flirty girls and dapper dressed boi's with a whole lotta charm and not a lotta grace. But my body masqueraded as a tuning fork, my eyes the prongs. Her the vibration.

My gaze traced the femme before me. From the seam of her stocking my eyes followed. She was Sophie Marceaux and I was a an older Zulawski, studying beauty behind the camera lens. At that very moment I could be anyone and she could be anyone, and who could we be in eachother's arms? The fishnet ran a criss-cross dialogue between skin and cotton. Whispering a sweet stroke me with forbidden mumurs. From the incline of her ankle to the crevices in the backs of her knees my eyes followed, hoping to catch her skirt on the hook of my imaginary fishing line and raise it slightly.
The hem of her black woolen pencil skirt sat just on that crevice and refused to bid entry to the pleasures that lay in waiting. Making me beg the question :"Feast or famine?"

Her skirt and blouse glorified the curve of her hips and breasts but left a lot to the imagination.
Mine was peeking through keyholes like a child trying to spy Father Christmas at midnight.
She stood before me in a line to the balcony where people could smoke. She was with another woman and they were chatting as she fumbled through her handbag for a lighter.
As a group of boys came off the balcony and back into the club, the lady that had caught my attention turned to look back and did not face me but looked over my shoulder to her friends inside, waved and motioned for a light.

Three Valium Down

There is a heatwave in this city. More seriously all over the country.
The other night I took comfort on the kitchen floor in a bikini with three joints to help me reach a state of zen.
It reminded me of another time I took to bunking in the kitchen.

After September 2000 I remember a lot of media hype about the following war for oil.

The sky teared up, with a black and swollen face. A massive storm was chortling at us under its breath, preparing to shred the ominous white cloud blankets and announce doom.
Like a child slapped and taunted before she starts to cry.
That moment of pause, between the realization of sorrow and release of emotion.

That day my butch came home from work white as a ghost, faced me with the same expression.
We took to the kitchen by the light of the oven, wrapped in doonas, three Valium down.

And hid from the world.

I believe it takes a political crisis or a dramatic natural turn like a heatwave to push people to share humanness. Fear, anxt, inability to compose oneself.

The other night in the sweltering heat, I was not a lady. My legs splayed, I sweat (that's right, not glowed) and I cackled like a child. I flailed like a fish on the hot banks of the January River.

My mother was talking last night about a certain joy of life that is noticeably different about those who really struggle. Those truly face with adversity. They kind of take life by the balls I suppose.
Whereas those of us with privilege, with our comfort and war and poverty on television where we can conveniently switch it off and off and off again, seem so wrapped in idealism that we build a fence between ourselves and reality, and somehow, therefore, such excitement that comes with it.

I will try and choose to tear down such a fence. Or at least acknowledge it is there.


Today is hot again. I am writing from an air conditioned room. I may take myself outside today.

And feel it.

quiet monumental brat hangover

hush in the morning.
I woke after three hours of almost sleep spooning in bed with my little sister.
Her boyfriend had moved onto the floor.
I'm across the bridge and I have to work at 11.

It'll be a queazy 45 dollar taxi to the shop.

In these moments I have little quiet epiphanies.
Its like a catastrophe of dreaming.

I think about trawling conversations last night on the floor of some teenage indie club where everyone is dressed awkward and scruffy and skinny and ubercool.
I am in contrast with an extra few years and more junk in the trunk.

Im old. It seems. Or so the door security want to remind me. When one goes out with a troupe of 19 yr olds, fresh in their thoughts and brazen with beliefs, one can feel like Mrs. Robinson.

And my mantra, I must spend more time with this openess. I must spend more time with this openess. Opening. to new.

I have big love inside me at the moment. For so much. So much gratitude.

Is this the light of self acceptance?

Rumours are

Rumours are rumours are rumours.

I pay no mind.

I dont live by what others may be saying.

I make my own rules.

The art of illusion can be created by the onlooker a lot of the time.

Love Hate Relationship: Dear diary, My body is a bitch.....

I start at the tips of my toes, and little by little

I will attempt to make the most of my attributes. I will try to make amends with my loathing.

Make little less burden, make most of flesh.

These attributes fall upon critical eyes. Ones own.

A heavy going relationship with this mound of flesh we call a body.
Bitch bitch bitch. Stand up straight. You should be at the gym. Why why why are you on the couch, on the bench smoking, staring into nothing is favourable to being kind to oneself when Love Hate is at work.
Incessant dialogue in my head.
Enough now, I might state quite clearly, but still it is relentless.

Constant Comparison.
Which is stupid really. because nothing compares. we cant compare.
and to whom do we compare? or what? pieces of imagery that exists only in a balloon of perfection that I created, dreamed up one lonely night.

There are parts of me that get too much attention. I give in to the evil. Alone. In the darkness.

What is missing from this face?

written on the body. carved into the skin, and inked with the darkest shade of permanence.

tattooed across the forehead - I once had - Little girl. Lost and broken. Weathered by giving in to average lust and abuse.

That seemed at least more pertinent than - Love me. I Can't. So somebody should.


Dear diary,

My body is a bitch.

She wont harden up where she is sposed to. She stays soft in some spots.
She craves the forbidden.

I am strict with her but she wont listen.

Thursday night I worked.
After having a bad bust up with my body, I felt out of steam. Inside I hid that feeling.
Outside I had a strut.

Four or five people made comments about my body. This is not unusual. People feel they can comment I guess when you wear your flesh with confidence.
Waist, tits, ass and so on. Complimentary comments, I guess you could say.

people believe they are giving you a compliment. its an interesting opposite to the conversation going on inside my mind.

I want to get off this ride.

Its making me sick.