30/05/05
i may stop putting all of these extra entries here in my old diary if i create a new diary of some kind, or who knows, maybe i'll just add things at random wherever seems appropriate at the time, and maybe i'll link things in unusual ways.
i remembered the other day that when i was 19 or 20 i took a lot of photos of my siblings with a very cheap camera, and that i seemed to approach it in the same ways i now photograph myself: taking photos from a lot of different angles, in different ways. when the photos came back from the developing, i would snip them and sometimes arrange them in collages. i dressed up one of my brothers as a girl and did his hair and makeup and photographed him, and i dressed up my sister as a punk/goth and photographed her. also lots of photos of my sister's face (just regular, not punk/goth), with different expressions. the quality of the photos wasn't good, but it occurs to me that i had a certain approach that is very similar to what i do now.
i didn't have money for a camera, or for developing, and even if i did, i wouldn't have been able to leave the house to deal with various aspects of it. (whine, whine) i liked the idea of a darkroom, and learning how to develop my own pictures, but it didn't seem realistic in my circumstances. for a short time a few years later, i had access to a better camera for a very short period, and used it twice. i was only just learning, and i think that with more experimentation i would have probably figured some things out on my own. but i really only had a couple of tries at it, and wasn't assertive enough to find some way to be allowed to try more.
i wanted to remember something that happened a while back: i was out walking at night with gk when we saw a python in a park. i had a sudden urge to pet it, and so i stroked its back. the python formed its body into a figure 8, and then rose up in the middle of the formation, swaying, as if it were dancing. it reminded me of the way snakes dance for snake charmers. anyway, gk witnessed this.
i'm not sure what the hell my current new page is about. i was hit with the urge to take some photos, and i took a lot. i attached quotes because i don't feel ready to actually write anything. anaïs nin referred to 'house of incest' as the seed of all her work (regarding her novels). some of the themes, like loving or being attracted to only your self in others, (or what is familiar) and clinging to the beautiful things/moments/experiences in life causes a kind of stagnation.. i need to work on how i want to express this, but she has a hopeful approach... that she was trying to escape old patterns/personal patterns, and/or create something new. simplified. maybe offensively so. i'll try harder to articulate something at some point. hopefully. i don't feel like i can write anything at present.
i still feel like i want to apologize for myself, for not having something more interesting to say or to show for myself. i feel exhausted and discouraged, wondering if i will ever move forward to something new, or if i'll keep going over the same things, and not try to take anything to another level. it all seems so slow.
...And speech is like a volley of dead leaves and dust, stifling the air. Human beings should learn to make weird, wordless cries, like animals, and cast off the clutter of words...
-DH Lawrence, Kangaroo
[note: i didn't actually like the book, but there are a few quotes/ideas in it here and there that i did like.]
01/06/05:
eventually maybe i'll try to address all of the navigation problems/inconsistencies, and issues such as whether i want to continue to use the blend/fade mode on any pages, or add it to more pages. (that only works as written in internet explorer, and i often wonder if it's an annoyance in certain circumstances, if it slows things down too much when someone wants to view things on my images pages quickly.) there are other things that perhaps could be simplified or changed or made more complex.
links, connections, coincidences: not long after i gave one thing up, my coffee addiction began (coffee addiction began in august 2001). the coffee addiction began while i was reading 'a spy in the house of love' by anaïs nin, and when i came back from that trip i began work on my red room.
on a.s.h, i once made a comment about how when i write something i often don't mind if no one responds, because it's like i 'get away with' something... i can't remember if i elaborated, or elaborated enough, ever, but i've always felt i needed to try to address that to make things clearer. it's not that i don't want anything i say ever questioned. i actually seem to crave certain kinds of questioning, with the opportunity to explain more fully what i mean in a lot of areas. but on a.s.h, there are often too many influences in too many directions, and the stress i feel makes a place like that perhaps not the ideal place for me to try to focus in, edit out non-essential info, and elaborate. it's like i need the concentration or the illusion of the feeling that someone is listening carefully, and that i feel secure enough to try to explain difficult or complicated things. sometimes, i liked trying to explain things publicly, but most of the time i seem to crave intense one-on-one contact, and think in that circumstance i have a better chance of communicating effectively/accurately/in depth than i do in a public situation. as for my website, i still seem to sometimes hope that i will attract someone who will want to communicate in the ways i do, but it seems unrealistic and so i continue to communicate in this one-sided way as a kind of affirmation of my existence, or a way of communicating with myself. however, it may be part of my own personal pattern that once in a while i do build up the energy for coping with more public interaction.
[issues with lurking (why i haven't been lurking for a very long time, although a couple of times i checked posts of one particular person through google) and posting: one thing is that as i read what people write, i feel drawn into their feelings and situations, and it's difficult to overcome the chaotic thoughts and feelings that produces for me. one way this manifests is that i find that i end up feeling that it's not fair if anything good ever happens to me, and i end up focusing such that i don't want anything good to happen to me in such an unfair world where so many people who i think are beautiful will never be allowed to see how beautiful they are. another thing is that i find a lot of the backbiting stressful and reminiscent of family dramas. also, people come to ash with different perspectives and aims, and often i find it difficult to handle the stress of figuring out how to explain my particular level of detachment and lack of ability to function, and my particular 'temporary' approach to things, and the sort of weird impulse that seems to drive me to ash when i do show up there (i'm still unable to get rid of the idea that i want to go on some kind of suicide holiday with a person i connect with - it just seems unrealistic to me that i will find that in ash, considering my experience to date.) sometimes, there are just so many potential ideas to address that my mind spends too much time addressing one, then another, none completely, and instead of choosing one and focusing in, i stay lost pingponging all over the place, and don't write anything.
sometimes i find it difficult to handle the emotional responses i might bring out in others, or that they might wish to have a kind of interaction or discussion that i don't feel up to in the moment - i find it difficult to handle the chaotic feelings/potential disappointment or unsureness or potential self-doubt of others sometimes, and am not good at just ignoring. when i do, i feel stress that seems to build. i want to treat everyone as a human being who deserves a genuine response. i want to have the energy for that, to respond in a way that seems consistent with some kind of internal 'code' i have. another thing is that when i compare myself to the people i see, i end up feeling that everything i do is silly, uncool, stupid, an embarrassment in one way or another. and i become sort of paralyzed, unable to do, say or create anything. i don't consciously accept that everything i do is stupid or that that's the 'point', but i think the anxiety i experience might have something to do with this factor and a lot of the other factors combined - when all stresses are combined, i think i find it difficult to sort through all the chaos and express anything. whereas when i'm on my own, i just somehow do my own thing more often, it's not as much of a struggle. not totally unself-consciously, but less self-consciously than in a group situation. i don't take in as many conflicting messages and so my energy is directed in different directions. i end up wanting to 'help' people on ash, but i know i can't. it ends up seeming the better option to go somewhere i'm better able to be 'myself', and if at some point what i express is helpful to others going through something similar, or if it helps someone to pass some time, or something along those lines, maybe that's the best i can hope for.]
it's difficult sometimes to get over the feeling of embarrassment related to what i express, and it's not really a consolation that it appears that no one cares, or notices all that much about what i say or do. i feel like i don't matter. and it's not that i feel like i should feel sorry for myself, it's not like i think anything 'matters', it's maybe that sometimes it feels like a lot of energy has gone into something i've expressed, and i just feel so lonely afterward. in the past, when i had urges to express things, i'd sometimes think it was leading to me finding ways to communicate with people, with the world, but the pattern seems to be that everything i do only seems to isolate me more, there doesn't seem to be enough common ground or a point of entry, or something that allows more of the world in to where i am.
i haven't thought much about this entry. does it show? i feel exhausted, but it's like for some reason i can't let myself relax until i finish tying up some loose thoughts for now, according to some silly internal pressure. am i done for now. can i relax for a moment now, will the stress be relieved. and what next. waiting, enduring, until i am forced to put more here by whatever internal pressure next presents itself? i want something to feel good. but there isn't anything except different shades of stress, anxiety, loneliness.
...Necessary, forever necessary, to burn out false shames and smelt the heaviest ore of the body into purity...
-DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover