Coming Out/In

Today I came out as trans to some of the guys I've worked with for years and grown to think of as good friends. It was far harder than coming out to my workshop counterparts - I haven't known them or loved them for long at all and therefore can take or leave whether they like me or care at all. The guys today, though... I've known them for longer and don't want to lose them.

Typically I put myself through hell before telling them. I was nervous as hell. I was trying to escape my own ultimatum to do it today, before I take my second shot, before I go too far into my changes to be being polite about it and more like treating them as an afterthought. But... it's one thing to think Well if they can't handle it they're obviously not friends and completely another to face the thought of losing them as friends but still having to face them at work.

Also typically, it appears I put myself through hell for nothing. Everyone was great - no stars and banners, no shock, no turning away. Just a calm response of Whatever makes you happy. You're still Vic. I love this industry. What a great bunch of guys.

"So You're Going Down the Trans Path, Hey?"

Wow. How do I write about something so deep in me and do it justice?

Hmmm. Maybe I'll leave that one for later. For the moment I'll just state the facts.

I've changed my name, driver's license, work details, bank details, even my fucking gym membership. When I think I'm done, yet another letter will turn up with my old name on it. Some systems will let me change my gender marker and title, some won't. It will get better eventually, with a bit more fight if I can muster it up, or at least when I take the surgery path.

I started testosterone on the 28th of February this year. Just over two weeks ago.



I've found it most difficult to tell the people that I care about the most. I find it hard to even organise my thoughts around how to say it sometimes. But... I'm still Vic, right?

Tickled

Yesterday I worked with just one bloke all day. We got paired up to do menial shit. It's boring as hell, but it's menial shit that has to be done none the less. My method is to just hook in and make it go away as quick as possible.

Today will be the same story, because we're not finished that pile of work yet.

The problem is not the work. It's the guy I'm with to do it.

See, normally I can work pretty well with people I don't like. Sometimes the case is that I don't like their personality but they're a hell of a worker. Sometimes it's the opposite - they can't organise their work at all but it's compensated by the fact that the conversation has you smiling all day. I try to find some aspect that is at least tolerable about them, if not truly likeable.

But this guy... Well, he's just tickled me with the dislike feather all over. Depressed conversation that is constant, not much knowledge of the work even though he says constantly how good he is at it, thick as a fucking plank, and top it all off he's plainly trying to assert his alpha maleness over me. Bahaha.

Boring. Fucking. Idiot.

Today I will snap the dislike feather into pieces.

Archaeology...

Here is just one of the reasons I am not so much a fan of being a surveyor's assistant. One of the rail companies will eventually put a train refuelling station on this lovely patch, so that even more coal trains can run their loads more frequently.

Currently, though, there are significant items of "Aboriginal and European heritage" littered all over the site. They'll have to document these and then piss them off anyway, rather than leave them there, and that's where we came into the picture.



Three hundred and fifteen pegs. In a ten metre square grid. Never mind that the site has already been bulldozed some time ago, and that there are smashed old bits of stuff littered everywhere, really of not cultural significance any more at all. And guess who hammered those pegs in?

I'm going back to mining.

Gender and the Bathroom

I've started wearing ties again. Oh Fuck, it's been about two years since I felt comfortable enough in one. Let's just say that the elements I surrounded myself with in the time in between were rather quick to judge and I fell for it, slowly but surely cutting out the little masculine things I enjoyed. At the time I was kidding myself that I was fitting in. Now I see it as a major setback in my personal gender explorations.

Anyways, tonight I stepped out in a dress shirt and a tie. Apart from the fact that my chest still sticks out far more than I'd like it to, I looked good. I was happy. All I needed to do was to avoid checking myself out in side profile and I'd be fine and confident in my manufactured masculinity. Happy and fine as a non-gender-specific polymorphous individual.

I'm lucky to be sharing a very supportive environment now. The people around me are not just okay with me expressing who I am, they are encouraging me to explore it more, even. It feels great to be filling out my own skin again.

The fact that there are differences between my reality and that of other people became apperent when I went to the bathroom at the club we were having dinner at just this evening. I went to the bathroom for obvious reasons, and also to tidy up my apperance. I adjusted my tie in the mirror as I was turning to leave. At the same time, a poor older lady was walking in. She looked at me and I could see the embarrassment in her eyes. Panic that she'd walked into the wrong bathrooms. She walked backwards out the door and checked the sign.

Shit.

First thought: I don't want a scene here at all.

Second thought: Fuck you, lady. I wear who I am on the outside. I'm sure you piss in the same bathroom as your husband at home anyway.

Such a dilemma. I felt for her confusion, yet was angered by her narrow-mindedness.

Perhaps I just need to remind myself that other people's thoughts and reactions are their own, and not mine?

Object of Affection

I want one.



It's rare these days for me to make a decision based on pure sexiness of an item. I tend to be influenced more by functionality of an item rather than looks. A nice, sleek looking car? Why the hell would you do that? Can you fit a drum kit in the back of it? No? What the fuck would you want it for then??

But wait just one second.

I want that one.

It gave me a funny feeling in my crotch. It made my mouth open. It made my eyes glaze over. It made my heart rate quicken and I don't want to stop looking at it. I want to stroke it.

What the fuck will happen when I sit on one?

Resolutions?

It's leading up to the end of the year. That precious time where you think of all the resolutions you can make for the coming year. Where you plan to instigate changes, usually radical, and hope they make your life swiftly better.

Reality usually reduces that to one simple sentence.

"I'm never going to drink again."

However, I face another New Year's Eve of not drinking and instead falling asleep on the lounge in front of the television. In previous years I have played in front of drunken mobs of idiots, wishing I could join the throng in order to not witness the tragedy from under the bright lights of sobriety. This time around I've got to work a nasty long shift New Year's Eve, and a 4am start isn't particularly condusive to partying after work.

So what will be the focus of my lounge-bound life-altering resolutions?



Up Yours, All Right

That's it. Whatever way I can find to say Fuck You, This is ME I want to embrace and try it out.

Hey, something's gotta work. This past year I've been run down by the people I trusted, I've given myself more the enough knocks of my own doing, chance has given me some dodgey turns and frankly I didn't want to come out of it alive.

Why? I think I got so caught up in wanting to be wanted that I lost sight of the real me. The sometimes funny, intelligent musician who had a genuine love of seeing new things and finding wonder in the world. I want it back. Fuck you, this is ME.

And if you can't hack it...

Don't bother sticking around.

Do You Ever?

Do you ever:

Wish you could play music all day and never stop?

Want to work with friends and not losers?

Hope that the chick you just saw a picture of and thought she was gorgeous would realise that Mr. Wonderful was actually you, the person who doesn't actually have a penis?

No???

Maybe it's just me then.

The Death of Myrtle [Part III]

Where we left off...

I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.

If you've missed the rest of the saga, you might want to go have a look at Part I and Part II before continuing here.

I'd done a walk to some local farms and scored some oil along the away. At one of the farms I walked into, there was nobody home. I was so damned frustrated at that point I rifled through their shed anyway. I figured if I found what I needed there I'd take it and leave whatever cash I had laying there for them in order to make some sort of attempt to apologise for breaking in and taking their oil. But no avail anyway.

Finally I got back on my way, with a mixture of lawnmower oil and a little of the right stuff slurping around in my stressed-out engine. I nursed this poor clapped-out beast of a car with shot brakes toward my destination. Sometime during the previous night (before passing out) I had organised for the kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick, the friends I was to meet up with, to start making their way toward me to meet up. I planned to leave Myrtle somewhere out of sight and mind until my fun, relaxing weekend with my friends was over and only then think about what to do with her.

Oh boy, Myrtle wasn't well. Not well at all. She rattled and clattered another hundred kilometres or so, getting worse and worse as she went. Myrtle and I got ourselves to the town that joins the wiggly little back route that I'd taken to one of the most well-used highways in the country - the Pacific Highway. Home of idiots in cars, trucks, caravans, and a hell of a lot more idiots. But I digress. The lead-up to getting on this nightmare highway consists of two roundabouts. They are hemmed in on either side by guard rails. There's traffic going every which way and everybody is in a hurry to get on the highway and out of there.

Myrtle got me through the first one, just. Something in her went clunk as I negotiated my way around. The second one was where she spoke for the last time. You're Fucked she said, as she died mid-roundabout and left me with enough forward momentum to get onto the verge on the other side of the exit. There she was, past the roundabout, but half off the road and nudged up against the guardrail on a section that nowhere to pull completely off. Great.

I was pissed. I couldn't even quietly dump her now. She was the equivalent of a big neon sign flashing ABANDONED on a very busy section of road.

Luckily kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick were only minutes away from catching up with me. We ripped everything off the car of any worth to me, including the plates. I was having a hell of a time trying to get everything out of the centre console, so IcePick sorted that one out for me. Giggling the whole time, he grabbed the entire console and ripped it out for me.

With that, I said goodbye to Myrtle. We drove off toward our concert, with the prospect of drinking wine in the sun and cheering on Ani Difranco being far more appealing than dwelling on the crime I had just committed and my new-found lack of transport.

Blast from the past

Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
- Tonight, Tonight The Smashing Pumpkins

I've been brushing the accumulated dust off a few of the old albums I've accumulated. In listening to them, I think that I've also been brushing the dust off a few old memories, too.

One of the albums I've brushed down and breathed back into life is The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which is a two-disc odyssey mainly composed of polar opposites: fuzzed out anger, and sweet lilting love tunes. There's an overall attempt at hopelessness, but honestly it doesn't stick. What I find amazing is that even though I haven't bothered to keep the dust from gathering in layers on the surface of this album, all it takes is one listen to have it all come flooding back. You know what's coming in every song, you anticipate the opening to the next track, all those words are still tucked away in your mind ready to sing along. All without being aware that the knowledge still exists somewhere in there, dormant, but ready to rise given the need.

I think the lyric above - you can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth - can be interpreted in a positive way. Yes, you leave a piece of youth with these things that gather dust in dormancy. But blow the dust off and it's still there waiting to be experienced again. In those moments, time is never time at all.

Scraping the Barrel

I was wandering around the city yesterday and happened across one of the local art galleries. It's been bothering me ever since, and obviously enough to write about.

The gallery is a University student gallery. From that typically I would expect a less focused, more emotionally driven set of works, probably more focused on the dark aspects of life. There could be anything from installations featuring broken mirrors and fake blood to grotesque attempts at sculpture depicting the many deaths of the human heart. Cynical? Hell yes.

It was pretty disappointing. I found the space itself far more interesting than the contents. A converted carpark area inside a building! I could have so much fun with sound installations. The exhibits themselves lacked continuity and thought. They were lacking in even emotional depth.

But there was one that really got into my head. A series of photographs taken at night. The intent was "alternate light". Great idea. Piss-poor execution. There were about thirty photographs, half a dozen of them unmounted and tacked to the wall and the rest mounted. The unmounted were marked for sale at $15 each, and mounted for $70. The shots were shithouse! Seriously, if I took anything like that on my camera, I would delete it in disgust. There were no focal points, no interest in the composition. It was as if the photographer walked outside, pointed the lens somewhere in the direction of a lightsource, clicked once and printed the result. There was no thought in the process, and therefore no evocation of thought afterward. Okay, it did evoke a thought.

Does this person seriously believe they are an artist?

I believe myself to be an amateur. Maybe I need to stop learning and go back to Uni. Forget everything I've learned about using my eyes and brain. Then I'll get some gallery space.

Bored, Broke

Over to the world in general:

When you're bored and broke, what do you do with your time?

Insight would be much appreciated.

I've been messing about in Flickr groups quite a lot recently. Through a local contacts group I've come across a few interesting people. There's also plenty of ones that I would never bother meeting, but that's the same in the wider world as well, I guess.

Anyway, one of the better local contacts invited me to join another group. It's sadly addictive - a group where a theme or technique is decided by anyone, and then three photos need to be submitted to match that theme. After that, the members vote on the submitted photos. To me it's a great way to review other works and learn more about what I like. Also I've submitted a few and been surprised by some of the results. You only need to get five votes to win a round, but that's five votes that I had no idea were out there for the things I see and take pictures of.

Most of the challenges are decided by the first person to post a photo in that round. Usually somebody pops up and chooses "sunset" or "rocks" or "rusty" and really doesn't put too much thought into setting a real challenge. Everybody has sunset photos. We all think they're brilliant. Probably most are pretty good, but come on. It's not difficult to get a good sunset shot. The sky is doing the work for you there. That said, though... I still love a good sunset and I'll shoot them as much as I can.

I jumped in first on one of the challenges in order to be the person who decides what it's going to be. Here was my challenge:

BONES



The moderators removed it, and changed the theme of the challenge.

Seriously.

What the fuck???

So it's not your happy clappy shot. So? It's a fucking skeleton. There's no maggots (though if there were some around I would have shot them, too). To me it's a visually interesting combination of hide, skull and grass. If you wanted to be completely trite about describing it you could say a celebration of the continual cycle of life in nature or something similarly profound.

Close-minded arseholes, I say.

At least I didn't post this one:



The whole thing amuses me more than pisses me off. But it gets me to thinking...

If we approach photography, as well as any other art form, as a means of historical documentation why the hell are we always obsessed with recording the happy bits? Do we seriously want a historical record that says everything was peachy for us? What the hell will the next generation learn from that?

I would much rather see photos of destruction and things that are not readily available to my eyes than pictures of your gappy-toothed grinning sprogs with ice-cream smeared on their faces. A picture of a screaming child is more emotive, and more informative about that child than a posed-up PixiFoto Santa session. Do your kids seriously spend all year grinning hopelessly? I fucking hope not. They'll end up more shallow than Paris Hilton.

When I introduce music composition to students the first thing I discuss with them is intent. If you want to write a piece that inspires your audience to visualise every nightmare they ever had, go for it. If that's your intent. If you want to write a piece that makes people get up and leave the performance in disgust, go ahead. If that's your intent. If you want to write a piece that makes your audience visualise skipping down streets lined with picket fences, bursting blooms of flowers and bright sun, go ahead and do just that. You're most likely to find though, that the pieces that have more depth of emotion have more impact.

So why expect any different in photography? Give me reality any day.

Bones and all.

Bring It On

I love a good comments fight. I've never been truly harassed but honestly sometimes I'd welcome the opportunity to get in and get sharp with my words. Last year I had a person calling themselves "Devil's Advocate" who challenged me on a few things in my comments. Those were brilliant days. I was filled with fire, checking my email constantly, waiting for the next move in a war of words with an unknown enemy. It was an exciting dance of debate and sticking up for what I believe.



Recently I posted this photo in my Flickr photostream. One person commented, which is nice considering I don't often get many comments. Until you look at it. Here we are:

only a BONEHEAD would leave that old junk there .. please clean that up or tell somebody to recycle it .. in canada you get paid cash for bringing in scrap metal like that to the metal recycler

Oh yeah. Game on, buddy.

I checked this person's photostream just to see what they were interested in. It must be set to private, because access is denied. That just makes this person another "anonymous". Somebody who feels happy to leave comment on somebody else, but not expose anything of who they are.

Game on.

Because I left it there, you are implying that I am a bonehead.

It would be better that you know the situation before you attack somebody in the way that you have. True, the person who had the trouble with the tyre should have taken it with them, but you are saying also that a bushwalker who finds it should lug it all the way home with them.

Ask yourself where the line is between rubbish and relics. If you found a shack going to ruin out in the bush would you jump up and down about it being recyclable? Or would you view it as a relic? As a photographer, I would rather observe, take a picture and leave. That is my perogative.

I appreciate your care for the environment and think that it is admirable. Your decision to sling around names such as bonehead, in caps no less, is less than appreciated. Constructive criticism of my work is more than welcome. Names are not.

Vic

I'm somewhat disappointed with my reply. Hindsight says that it could have been far better constructed. I'm out of practice.

The funny thing is that apart from this one all you seem to get for comments is Beautiful shot. I'd much rather being called a bonehead. At least there's some thought behind it (misguided though it may be). Plus it means Word War. But what happened to constructive criticism? What about qualifying why you thought it was a beautiful shot?

Anyway. Somewhere out there is a person who called me BONEHEAD. Indeed, my brain is protected from harm by a skull made of bone, but that is beside the point. I hope and wish for this person to take up their sword and join the match.

Bring It On.

Resolution

Last night I intended to see the New Year in alone, camping somewhere picturesque. The idea behind it was to set the tone for the year. That is: Fuck everyone. The focus is on me." That is:- what I want to do, what I want to see. Want to come along? You're welcome. Anybody can come along. If you don't want to? Fuck off. I don't care about your reasons because they're not mine to deal with.

Anyway, the bosses that be decided I should fulfill my obligation to be at work early on New Year's eve, and be back early on Friday also. A lovely picturesque camping trip with a deadline just isn't the same, so I stayed at home for the big night. Tired, but relaxed knowing that there was a day off to be had today.

I contemplated getting dressed up, walking down to the train station and kicking back to watch the fireworks in the city, but tiredness was a major factor. No way am I going to get there, not be able to deal with people because I'm tired and cranky and make it all the way back home again. It just wasn't a sensible option. I kicked back and raised a few vodkas to myself, and before I knew it the sleepiness had kicked in and it was only ten. I set the alarm on my phone for eleven thirty, lay my head on the lounge and "rested my eyes".

The alarm woke me up to hear the revelry of the street. I said a quiet Happy New Year to myself and had another doze on the lounge again.

Around six this morning I woke up feeling alive and empowered. Why? This is my year. Mine. I will see the things I want to see and wait for nobody. It feels as though there are waves of energy coursing from my fingertips. That I have the Midas touch. Will there be obstacles for me? Of course. But in the spirit of parkour the obstacle will become part of the landscape and could represent a launching point to a better line of movement.

Fuck everyone. This is my year.

Capping off yet another week

I've just been to the psych yet again. This has been a constant fight to "get back the old Vic" that I had. Actually, really, to build a new Vic that respects and retains elements of the old one... but is a hell of a lot stronger.

She wants to see what positive work I've been doing toward my goals. Fair enough, that's what I need to do and she has to follow up on it. But when it comes to music she doesn't see that the things I have been doing are absolute milestones for me with respect toward my attitude changes. To a non-musician it seems that getting back into music means that you should go out and gig next week. HORSESHIT. Maybe somebody who has no respect for skills and reputation would. Not me.

Why the hell am I posting album reviews here? Because I'm listening to anything I can get my hands onto. That doesn't impress a non-musician either. Yay, you listened to something. It doesn't seem impressive at all. But what she doesn't get, and that I have to fight to explain in a recognisable manner to her, is that when I listen to something I am critical about it. I don't kick back and let it flow. I analyse, I constantly try to find what could be improved or what the strong points of a piece are. This sort of exposure and analysis is so integral to moving forward as a musician, but so overlooked.

Am I playing, even at home? A little. My instrument doesn't scare the hell out of me any more. Yet, I pick it up and it's a fight to build up the old skills I had. They fall into disrepair so quickly once you stop playing. There is no way I can handle a regimented practise routine yet - the failures I would measure against myself in this would create more frustration than positivity. The fact that I play when I want to shows that I building back the skills without the pressure. Does anyone hear me playing? No. I live in a granny flat seperate to the lives of others and really who gives a toss whether or not I decided to have a bash at my own acoustic version of whatever I've been listening to?. Forward progress? For me. It means that I am inspired, thinking. The fact that I'm playing is building the old skills up without the pressure of practise. The fact that I'm not inflicting this on anybody else is circumstance mixed with respect. Nobody should have shitty playing inflicted upon them without their consent.

When am I going to gig again? Not tomorrow. When am I going to look for others to gig with? Also not tomorrow. There is nothing respectable about somebody who goes for an audition and says, Oh, I used to play but I haven't picked it up in a while. Fuck off, you are not a musician and you have no dedication. I will never turn up unprepared. It's unproffessional. It shows no respect for the other musicians. So the hard yards have to be done at home, alone.

I bought a drum kit today, which I know will be intrepeted by most as a departure from guitar toward another instrument. Again, it's a fight to explain what this truly does for me. Playing a variety of instruments builds your musical knowledge but still has the same core activities involved. It doesn't mean you are giving up one for another, it actually helps your playing across the board. Like hell a non-musician is going to understand that one.

Apart from the music, I've been working and sleeping. Sometimes I take photographs. Sometimes I go on the internet and read about whatever takes my fancy. At work I have been spending hours occupying my mind and hands with drumming patterns and thoughts on what I've been listening to.

Photography has been a way for me to look creatively at what is around me. Kat and I have been playing tag for the last couple of weeks on different themes, and it is my turn to pick one again. I haven't posted many from the last theme, but lets blame that on a time thing. Like the music, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean I haven't been doing it.

It's my turn to pick a new theme.



The new theme is trees.

Remember: Just like the tree falling in the woods with nobody around, if you don't see the it... Doesn't mean that I'm not doing it.

This Is Not Art

There is a festival on in town - This Is Not Art. They had a Sunday afternoon fair that I decided to go along to, somewhat for inspiration for my brain and somewhat just to sit back and peoplewatch.

There was a uniform for all the contemporary artist types in attendance.

If you're female, you must:
1. Wear stripey socks pulled up to uneven heights on the legs.
2. Wear outrageously bright leggings, with a definite favour toward flouro pink.
3. Have access to your own sewing machine and manufacture some kind of sack to wear that you obviously flaunt as expressive and arty, but in reality - it's just a sack made from your old curtains.
4. Shave off the hair on one side of your head and not bother with brushing the other side. Bonus credo for cultivating dreadlocks.
5. Sport a satchel of hand-sewn nature consisting of a patchwork of bits of other hand-sewing failures.

If you're male, you must:
1. Cultivate facial fluff. Do not shave, do not trim, do not wash.
2. Wear some sort military jacket, but avoid camouflage print at all costs.
3. Have some sort of metal bits hanging off your face.
4. Blue denim is not your freind. Wear black, black, and more black when it comes to pants.

I wandered past rows and rows of zines, wondering at how these people can happily charge five bucks for ten poorly photocopied pages of bad poetry and stick figure drawings. I wandered past jewelery stores that all seemed to make use of shirt buttons. Fancy an earring with a shirt button on it? Why thanks, that might come in handy some day. I wandered past racks of sewing machine "retro" [=sack] atrocities and hand-made political buttons.

This Is Not Art. Damn right. What could be a really inspiring festival exploring the personally defined lines between art and atrocity left me feeling like I had seen to much atrocity. As for expressing individuality, how can you do that when you all look the same?

Not a Half-Nekkid Racket

It's Thursday. I should be joining Dive in posting my own tragic attempts at music-making. I should also be firing up the old thursday tradition of posting arty Half-Nekkid Thursday shots.

But dammit, I'm too stuffed.

Eleven hours of dragging an industrial vacuum hose around a big-arse machine in the heat of a coal pit and I'm absolutely knackered. I'm covered in grease, dust, and layers of filthy sweat. If it's this hot now, how the hell am I going to handle the summer?

Mine regulations say that we have to wear long sleeved shirts and pants of a specific design. We also have to wear steel capped lace-up work boots, a hard hat and safety glasses. Over the top of this is the usual cleaner's uniform is the disposable chemical suit. Sperm suits. Those things are like little zip-up sauna body bags. You could sell them to quite a few women as a weight loss program and probably make a mint out of it.

My clothes were wet from head to toe with sweat. It was dripping from my lip and forehead which is so unattractive I get the shits with myself for being a sweaty pig. The mandatory safety glasses fog up every ten minutes, and by the end of the day it was so hard to lift my feet with the weight of the steel caps on them that I felt like just shuffling them along instead.

Is this so hard simply because I'm unfit? Do I sweat more because I'm fatter than I should be, and unfit?

Do I have to spend hours at the gym and lose all this weight? Become a little fitness junkie in bike pants and a sports top? Do I drink less water? How do I stop from sweating so much?

Coping mechanisms

For the last week or so I've been unusually happy. Something snapped in me on the way home from a shit day at work one evening, and I where I would normally go home and be reclusive or ideally drink it off while being reclusive, I laughed out loud instead. I laughed all the way home. I came home and danced. While standing in the kitchen eating, I danced alone. Then I danced with the dog, because he was nearby and an inoccent victim I could rope into my happiness without noticeable complaint.

Work saw a different side of me. I'll write more about what I currently do for money at another point in the week, but suffice it to say the work is shit and the pay isn't great. But I've got renewed enthusiasm and have showed more of my old self to my relatively new workmates. My old self - the one who is not afraid to be seen as a bit of a dickhead, who isn't afraid to jerk around, but also who gets in and gets the dirty work done.

In short, I had my groove back.

My first in-depth appointment with my psych was on Saturday. We talked about the ex from over two years ago, mainly. Her task for me: write a letter to the ex describing all the ways she hurt me. Not a letter to be sent, I guess, but one that lets it all come escaping out of me and forces me to put it into form. Since this suggestion I've been fighting for my good mood. I have flat points - moments where I cannot comprehend anything that is going around me, even the smallest things. It's like time slows for me into dreamlike unreality, and then I wake up from the dream bleary eyed and unable to remember exactly what it was about.

These are things I need to confront. They are going to be painful but ultimately for my own benefit. The pain is scary beyond belief. How do people going into life threatening operations cope? I cannot comprehend it. This shit is not physical, it's only my thoughts! Somehow I'm afraid to face what I know I have to in order to get on with living.

I feel between a rock and a hard place when it comes to coping. Where I would normally shut myself away and blare some weird music on my stereo, I find myself only with my laptop speakers and a tenth of my music collection. The rest - the kickarse stereo and the collection of CDs that I have accumulated over so many changes in my life - are in storage at my parents' house about ten hours drive away. I cannot go there to retrieve them, because my dealings with them are a large part of the reason I've sought therapy in the first place.

So what do I do about this letter? How do I cope with writing it? How do I bust down all the mental barriers I've put up over the two years to block the bitch out of my head? And what do I do to save those surrounding me from having to see my pain?

Apathetic Emo

I've had this recurring image lately. It comes in various forms but with the same theme, and occurs mostly when my mind is unoccupied by other goings on such as work or listening to different music. The image: my feet, tied together with rope bindings. Within this image I don't struggle against the binds. I am comfortable knowing that my feet are bound, in fact I'm quite happy to be that way.

There has been some talk kicking about the house of photo shoots of cut skin, and blood. Internally I am screaming Pick Me! for these shots. The weird thing in this, though, is that I do not want to harm myself, especially in the emo cutting type of way. I want to be surgically sliced into by somebody else.

I can't figure it out. There is no sexual motivation behind it. So what the hell is driving this imagery? Am I an apathetic emo, too lazy to do my own cutting?