sink (swim)

I always thought this was only offered in Newtown
I forgot Newton
They can probably see my fresh eyes
but I don't feel embarrassed staring

besides,
it's not staring it's
Looking Intently

I know living here would feed my curiosity
curiosity would feed my creativity
and creativity might eat my pocket
or eat me
or feed me or
both

and as they say of New York
I either drown or flourish

Auckland is drowning me

things from you*

Things I have learned from you:

Break habits.
Call in sick.
If you have something good, hold onto it.
Laughter and collarbones are really the only things that matter.
A jack of all trades is a master of none.
You need to be gentle with people.
Go to it, not away from it.
Freckles are good.


Things I have learned because of you:

Take a phone with you.
Put your phone on silent.
I can't multitask.
You play by the leader's terms.
Names aren't as important as silent dialogue.
It ends when you say you're not sticking around.
The space before defines the night.
I know.
I am knowing.
Always suggest going for a walk.
Kisses are just isolated hugs.
Away places are still with consequence.
Some pills have lactose in them.
There is going to be physical evidence.
Find satisfaction in foreign things.
Everything is ok, in context.
People aren't often gentle.
Just be like when you're dancing.
Most of my tension is held in my legs.
The important body is often neglected.
There is no half way.
People are not entities but experiences.




*you as a collective term

jeaniella ataimihia black-dunlop

Two summers ago I was in Sydney and my friend Jeanie said to me, "You should publish your writing to a blog." So I did.

My blog documents most of the significant events of my life over the past two years and also small-but-still-essential feelings.

Today is Jeanie's birthday. Thanks Jeanie. Happy birthday.

sydney scribblings: they know the answers are not in the book

This one is also mostly Jeanie. 

It's the last one. 

"

(flip to pg 3 for white lies!)

"

sydney scribblings: the answer

Jeanie wrote most of this one. But I stained it. Also I think the left side was written later in the year.

 

" 

THE ANSWER: 

what do these words 

mean to you? 

<---                                        --->

unsympathetic            <----->             unreasonable  

 

"

sydney scribblings: my mother's lost friend

"

 what do I do with this?
                                     no-one taught me about this one..

I like that 

your over

is under. 

so you contradicted 

yourself 

TWICE. 

is it still a 

contradiction? 

things we gift to others

                         we'd usually keep for ourselves..

you should

write

                  that down! 

SUPRISE HAZELNUT!!!

on grey 

sunday 

sydney

me

+

photographer  

I like 

arrows 

but I 

don't 

know 

why. I

guess

it's because

they're going somewhere

and that's what

I wanna do.

"MY MOTHER'S LOST FRIEND"   7/2/10

did this page exist before the words formed on it??

do these words exist if they can be erased??

does this pencil exist

                    if all the lead can be used up

and all the wood sharpened away??

does this page exist if it can be torn out

burned, shredded, eaten

does the hand which makes these markings exist

if one day it will be turned back into the earth

born of its own defecation

returning to from where it came

one day, in finding our own ends

we will discover the beginnings of each other

(what happens when the pencil goes blunt?)

they're 

going

somewhere

"

sydney scribblings: nowhere may be better

I think it's important for me to document how I was a year ago*.

"

memories of cute moments... (regarding what?)
5 being lifted off the ground in hugs
#2) a smile from a stranger in the street
3) realising I've met him before <-- x = direction
6 tears in bathroomstubs
4) kisses on foreheads (like amelie)

8 pan-caking gummy fejoa lollies
9 realising hte girls across the room also has pen & paper

7) hugs from ________
                      everyone
                      anyone
                      someone
9 living in the moment --> NOW.
14: sitting on chair horizontally
11 daisies picked by a someone special
13) thinking the same things

SOME THINGS
SHOULD SLEEP
PERMANENTLY
NEXT TO THE
HEART
but mine have
nightmares
on
computer screens

"

*Still makes me cringe though.

sydney scribblings: looks like

 

 "

looks 

like 

memories

from back (home?)

"

sydney scribblings: until we get bored

Zoom-in. Flow chart.

sydney scribblings: somewhere

"
even with stalactites outside

even with the hail of a four day

protest

in which God pledges allegiance with the 

earth

against stars -

life stills seems odd

I never knew where 

it was

I intended to head

until i stumbled across 

2-way arrows

like train tracks I think they are

GOING SOMEWHERE.
"

landing

I can see your homeland, boy
and my wanted four walls
entombing myself in borrowed sand
that my body should disintegrate into some similar gritty substance
and be filled over by a gentle christening
I dread unwanted goodbyes

sydney scribblings: beautiful things

When I was in Sydney last summer, my friend Jeanie and I spent a Sunday afternoon at Sole cafe in Newtown listening to live music, ordering tapas, drinking red wine and scribbling in Jeanie's notebook. 

I forgot about the scribblings until this year. I was looking through her notebook and saw the pages we had created together. I reckon that Sunday was one of the most enjoyable days I've had in Sydney. 

There are six pages.  I'm going to post them one at a time.

"

how great,

that when we are little

we are able to look

down on the world.

in our
own perfect
little world

Beautiful things:

1) a man and a woman losing their balance on a traffic island with smiles.

2) kisses in the back of taxi cabs while seeing left ring finger.

3) reading other peoples' books in public.

# 4. couple in SPIDERMAN suits. walking down street.

4) smiles @ strangers

5) puddle jumping

6) feeling pretty in pj's

we look so sad without words

"

BACK TO AUCKLAND TOMORROW

colons and dashes

The whole house is fighting over the toilet
There is a queue to see what you had for dinner
Dinner has undergone metamorphosis and is somewhat unrecognisable

Reverse metamorphosis though -
not a creepy caterpillar to an elegant butterfly but
from something worth paying $65.00 for, to a revolting
half-liquid mass sprawling seductively all over the toilet bowl (some of it)
although mostly basking on the bathroom floor
clinging like some importunate lover to your matted hair
and swinging sloppily off your chin.

Your toilet bowl stance:
bent and subservient
submitting your body to some crazy hot-flushed ache
shoulder blades, lower back seeping damp patches of spent energy
trying to recuperate; suddenly still after
involuntary violent jolts and harsh curved shapes in your spine
you feel it swarm through your body in sequence

Until afterward.
For all the contortion you feel an odd kind of 'better' ...

until the next sickness expands itself in your gut
gnawing away at your delicate immune system which you have taken
so many pills to protect
realising even the doctor can't help you when you are clutching porcelain
It is just you and that erratic bloody target of a toilet bowl jumping all around the damn bathroom

You better watch your healthy round back while you are bent over my dear
because I can guarantee
there is at least one other person standing in the doorway
watching the caterpillars erupt from your throat
housing a nervous system full of lithium, ready to
claim the toilet-throne for their own viewing pleasure
willing to bump heads
prepared to endure that vile green-brown taste
The smell is not great but the
power of being in this position
is inconceivable.

handbag snippets

For some reason my bus has only old people - except for me.


I sit by the girl
She leaves
A boy enters
He sits by the other boy


On the verge of health and riches I am most impatient. Hating my own gut, I go out to find people in unusual places - I climb trees to be with possums and drink cider for the health benefits of the minor artificial fruit content.

I always love an ending and hold onto it like some desperate child clinging to its parent womb.

Willingly, I would take five thousand poisons for friends. But I refuse to stand next to your primitive light - like I said, I'm on an apple diet.

My best accessory is a plastic bag and a plastic bottle to match (this is my plastic boycott). I am saving the world one casual sneaker on a crusty foot inching it's way into the pub at a time.

People are throwing fast food fast over my head and over and over, hangover, pizza in flight across the Tasman, be careful 'cause the pavement will pee on you unless you get him first.

You can park your bicycle at the bar if you intend to order upwards of $40.00 of drinks. But don't ask for a jager bomb - they call it something else here.

I saw a heavily tattooed man stretch his pinky finger out towards another man and the other man walked away smiling coyly. I think it was their first date. Out on Sydney's bigger and stranger version of K Road, with its Friday night manners.


Bus to Newtown
Newboy
Newboy from Newtown
He has your eyes and, I imagine, his hair


We would lie sides apart: parallel train tracks going nowhere; our vision on the 'ahead' and not each other. In these rare moments I hated the sun. Kisses were earned in arm wrestles rather than love. Your room stunk of self-assurance. I shed myself of you in the Chinese Garden on a hotter-than usual day and from a distance you fed me stories of your dead relatives who did not yet suffer arthritis or alzheimer's.

crafty

Yesterday I went to see the graduate design exhibition at UTS. One person had made a notebook with cut envelopes for pages. I can't remember who. Sorry. I thought it was great.

I like paper. Slight obsession. I collect paper. Mostly receipts, tickets, flyers, notes I find on the ground. I have massive bags full of paper which I intend to do something with. Halfway through the year some (a lot) of this paper became my hybrid art project. But I kept collecting even after I finished that.

In Sydney I have also been collecting paper. Today while baby was asleep I decided to make a pocket sized notebook from some of the paper I have collected, inspired by the one I saw at the exhibition yesterday. Some pages fold out into larger pieces. The left side of each leaf shows what the paper was originally used for, the right is blank or blank-ish for writing on. I sewed it together with a needle and thread. And bent the needle and broke it.

I like it very much.

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLzzz

Seen a LOT of these posters around town.

"The sluttiest way to end 2010."

 Damn.

pash fest in circular quay

Walking around the city after class tonight I stopped to take photos in a staircase/alleyway I liked.

I found a hidey-hole...  

... and hid inside.

Across the street I saw a couple (early thirties?) who had just come out of one of the restaurants. They were kissing. Quite a lot. I was surprised they felt comfortable doing this in public (I don't).

After a while they stopped, crossed the road and started walking towards me up the staircase. 

 

The man said something to me. I had my earphones in but he made a hand gesture which suggested that he was asking if I wanted him to take a photo for me. 

Assuming this was what he had said, I replied, "Oh, no thanks, it's ok." He asked, "Are you sure?" I waved my hand and smiled and said, "No, I'm fine thank you."

I was conscious that my camera was still on self timer and for some reason felt anxious knowing this, even though the flash was off and besides that they obviously could see what I was doing. I walked back to the camera quickly.

The couple kept walking past me up the staircase. I reallyreallyreally wanted a photo of them back-on walking up the staircase but because the camera was still on self timer I had to wait for it to finish capturing. All I got was the last bit of them ... walking into the hidey hole !

OMFGROFLOLOLOLZZZZZZZZZ scandal!

Awkward because I wanted to keep taking photos. But you can't just go and pose casually next to some strangers' pash fest, can you?

As I walked off I looked back because I couldn't quite believe it. I mean, when I was fourteen my (then) boyfriend and I got snapped kissing at the top of a tower where we thought no-one could see us - except apparently there were monitored security screens on the floor (oops). But I could never imagine public pash fest in a reasonably busy walkway as a 'mature' adult.

Yet looking back my suspicions were confirmed: Definite pash fest in hidey hole.

Crikey. And they go on about us 'young ones.'

oh the places you'll go!

City Rail's My Bitch by Glato at Horus and Deloris: Into the Jungle.

Smokey by Glato at Horus and Deloris: Into the Jungle
[made with warning signs from cigarette packages].

Current play companion [Mimi May Tanner, 11 months].

Business man enjoying a lie-down in Hyde Park during lunch.

St. Martin's church, Kensington.

Concrete TV screen reading "life is fleeting" with URGENT sticker pasted over, Newtown.

we need to find girls

You all look so daunted and fresh-faced, as if you've never heard
this part of town before
did it take courage to end up here or chance?
meandering through the train station before losing your cellphone to the tracks
the gap between the platform and the train is hungryhungryhungry.

There's nothing to do in
this city except walk around acting white and red
so instead we'll sit around in Hyde Park and have a beer or two
the lack of liquor ban basically demands it of us
the Christmas tree has lit us a spot
we'll be green for a bit
then we'll leave our bottles behind in a thoughtfully arranged pile
on the grass

walk off quickly holding your back to the imaginary gun
you're going to be hunted like a lover you will
have your footsteps mimicked
as you pick up your skateboard to climb the stairs
skating in the dark to some destination
put your hood up to save yourself
or: catch the 303 to wherever it goes and walk the difference
or: save all your coins for drinks and walk home instead
or: wander through empty shopping malls and see their attempts at Christmas

OR
wander to every corner
see the cardboard eyes
donate to their Christmas funds instead: a cushion and half a
hit, some fun
in a paper bag
so they can spit on your beautiful white shoes your stupid pointy
shoes sh-sh-shoes there are enough
traps laid out for you as it is
poisoned laughs spiking the footpaths of King's Cross
where the newest concrete has the least gum
and in the morning
as you carry your heels home in time to the sounds of birds
you can smell the remains of the weekend as they are
quietly cleaned away by a man (whose name you can't pronounce) in an
orange vest.

parking only

Walking home from an exhibition in Newtown, we stop in Waterloo to take photos.

 

[Photographed by myself and Jeanie Black-Dunlop.]