atlas puts down the sky {it's over}

.....they've cured aids,

http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20101215/hiv-aids-cure-faq

roll that sentence around in your mouth, they've cured aids.

they're words i never thought i would say.

and the gratitude i feel is a physical overflowing; shock and disbelief; elation and tears.

this torrent of relief, this great unburdening, i'm literally weeping as i type, stopping to shudder and marvel at the ending of this great evil, hands covering my mouth lest i fail to articulate this sensation.

of course the break through came from stem cells, why wouldn't it? as 'no country for old men' told us, there are no clean getaways. if ever there was a reason to brace against the tide of ignorance that has swelled around stem cells this is it.

the only point of comparison i can muster is the fall of the berlin wall, convenient, since as both have originated from Deutschland, but this is the twitter generation, who the fuck cares about the 80's any more [sic]? aids has never touched my life personally, which is a ham-fisted expression we use to say, "i don't have it and neither do those close to me", but aids has framed every datum of my socialisation surrounding sex and sexuality. the fear aids has inspired for my generation maps so cleanly onto the iron curtain reality of those born a decade before me, for my generation it has simply always been reality, a lynch pin understanding, as much as the idea of civilised society itself. sex = aids. and while that is clearly untrue the understanding doesn't come unstuck, well, until half an hour ago

Martin i hope you read this in the morning, with a cooling cup of tea in reach, because you'll need it, as much as i need your perspective right now.

this officially makes tomorrow "go-fuck-a-stranger day!"*

*(this most certainly does not make it "go-fuck-a-stranger day!", did you not listen to me when i was going on at you about hyperbole?)

i have rediscovered the sensation of hunger,
the all consuming experience sweeps over everything else, demanding more and more from you at every moment.

my enjoyment takes place as a cognitive dissonance between my desire to fulfill the instinctual urge and the silumtaneous appreciation of the sensation as it is, like the hunger itself is manifesting sentience and is suicidal, but only for the attention that self-immolation demands from others.

hungry writing becomes urgent, more seeking, while well fed writing feels rounded and self appreciative.

the semitone difference between a major fifth and an augmented fourth.

something else i had forgotten is the joy of owning a pencil case full of lead pencils; i love the smell of all that wood and graphite condensed in it's contained little universe, the textured onomatopeia of the zipper, the feel of the shapes beneath the cloth and vinyl and the sound of their muted joslting. as though the case itself is a calm middle aged cat, savouring it's own essence and sharing it with you: "i'm here and i have claws, but instead i purr and rub against your hand, sharing time with you when i could easy be any where else."

as though it were a creative survival kit, right here is assembled my specific and chosen requirements for safety and self expression.

as you can see, the carrot sticks i ate have had a profound effect on my writing from the start to the end of this stream of concsiousness, funny, ne ces't pas?

any way here's a first, some of that music that gets me through the day....



words fail...

- {listography helps weedle the start of things} -

a list of my experiences over the last month, since the submission of my thesis,
{in no chronological order.}

*starting a herb garden, {in order of how well they're doing}
mint
rosemary
lemon Thyme
basil

*developed a deep and abiding love for the band 'Explosions in the Sky'
{though this was always present since discovering them i have only just realised recently how much their music is representative of my emotional zero point}

*eaten a lot of cheese, bloody good cheese at that.

*lost 5 kilos of body weight {i am very happy to be on the road to enhabiting my body again, i didn't even enjoy the vacation}

*made some fantastic christmas gifts

*run out of money

*read some great stuff about sexuality, which has entertained me to the point of considering response, only to remember that i don't need to understand my sexuality simply because i recognise my own fluidity and act in faith of that.

*thrown away a lot of stuff, thank fuck.

*started a book club

*packed away my university work, which, at the moment, i will not be returning to.

*gotten rid of my upper neck and shoulder complaints

*started making music again

*made a list

it's funny, having just finished watching a huge amount of television, the wire (all 5 seasons in a week)I feel more liberated than i did upon finishing my honours.

this is partly because it correlates with having come to peace with the fact that i am in grief for newcastle, i wasn't fully ready to move. now that i am outside the terror and frustration of my honours i can see that it was the honours and the cyclical thinking i was running from.

i wouldn't change the decision for the world, but that's exactly what i did, changed the entirety of my physical world.

i now value everything i have left behind with a keen sense of longing, and when i am exquisite, a crushing sense of loss. as reality suffuses with memory and turns to nostalgia, (that fairy floss of memory that allows mothers to forget the pain of childbirth and only remember holding their new born baby*) i know i am glossing over the aspects of newcastle and my life there that drove me to move.

and this alclarity also gestures towards the fact that i haven't actually moved to melbourne yet, i've moved to a remote living room with an internet connection. i'm not in a place yet, swinging liminal between here and not here, i know my velocity but not my trajectory, in that great qualm of physics that us 'arts' majors so love to butcher.

oh lord, now i'm set towards trajectory i'm feeling the fire.

i have rediscovered how much more powerful life is when you feel

* In Andrew's dictionary the definition of nostalgia includes the note:
a living, tactile romance lost on the majority of men.