another train of thought too hard to follow

This morning, I turned off my alarm in my sleep. I think. It's entirely possible it didn't go off just to spite me. Either way, I opened my eyes at 7:07am, which was 7 minutes after I was due to start work. It isn't supposed to be light outside when I get up.

This is largely Andrew's fault, for if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been at Toff in Town for the album launch of ii (pronounced 'aye aye', apparently, although in my head it's 'eeee!'), who I'd never heard of, but he reassured me they were great, and so far his music props have been on the money, as proven by various other music recs and the Adam Franklin gig down Brunswick a couple of weeks back, who I'd also had never heard of before, and you know in an infinite universe there's infinite possibilities, the whole monkey/typewriter/hamlet thing, so there is a chance that I might eventually be pointed towards music that is shit, but I find that as probable as the monkey/typewriter/hamlet thing, and should it ever happen, I'll-

-probably just type in capital letters for a while.

ANYWAY.

They were great. Like a mash of Mice Parade, The Album Leaf, and a whole bunch of other bands that I can't recall the names of off the top of my head, because it all mixed together to make a brilliant, deceptively easy-looking blend of incredibleness. They started with two drum kits having a duel, oh what an opening paragraph. At one point, someone came on stage to play a time machine. Truly, it looked like a car battery hopped up on high school science projects and duct tape, and it sounded like a time machine. He took us through light years of time and space, till the guitars came in and we landed on a cold alien planet, which was initially devoid of life, but time flies, and the cities were built and grew and took over and fell down again.

At least, that's what I heard in the music. They might have been pining over ex-girlfriends. That's why people make music, right? Maybe they were weeping over the fact that their girlfriend left them for their brother. Who went on to have a snip become their sister. And now they want them to step in and father their lesbian love child. Something fucked up like that. But, that isn't what I heard in the music. I heard landscapes and time, and my time in that music was wonderful.

Which was why I was home after midnight, with an alarm set to go off only a few hours later. To be honest, even if I hadn't gone out, I wouldn't have slept. I'd have just lain on the lounge room floor with different music playing, and probably gone through a box of tissues trying to cry out all the poison in my head.

(For the record, I don't have a couch, or any manner of chairs. The floor is pretty much my only option. I'm not down there trying to add to the emoness of my current state of mind, I just don't have any other place to be except my bed, and right now I fucking hate my bed. Nothing but horror there.)

There is a great gap between me and myself. The me that is out in public around other people is fine. I'm not putting on a brave face or forcing a smile. I don't feel the need to, other people just bring that out. I'm not clinging to my moodiness for the sake of feeling sorry for myself. Admittedly, it takes some time to get past it, but not that long. Other people crack me up. People, man, what a fucked up bunch of walking meat sacks we are. You're amazing, stupid, gobsmacking and eternally surprising. What's not to laugh with?

The me that exists in private isn't doing so great. The last few months have been eventful in that entirely non-eventful way which comes only from failing, failing, and failing. Every direction I've tried to go, in every area of my life, I've been blocked, denied, and quietly and systematically fucked over. The last couple of days I've been wondering if this feeling of being entirely powerless and having absolutely no control over anything is the final step towards becoming an adult. I fight. With myself, the world, anything that comes along, 'cause I'm trying to get where I'm going. I've lost sight of where I'm going. I've tried new directions, and they haven't worked, because sometimes you just can't win. There's only so many times you can 'get over it and start over'. I didn't know that, now I do. I'm running out of Plan B, C, D, I'm running out of alphabet. Running out of fight. Running out of desire. My mum keeps calling and asking how I am. I'm not dead, but dead in the water. Going nowhere. Nowhere to go. I've had months to stare at proof of my own worthlessness, and now I can't see anything else. Can't see past it, can't move past it, can't even breathe past it.

Is that division healthy? If the public me was a mask, I'd say no. I'd know no. But it isn't, I'm not hiding anything. There's nothing to hide out there, because out there I'm okay. I'm okay here, because here I'm home home with dogs and creaky floorboards and gum trees dropping sticks on the roof. If it is like a switch flipping, is my personality splitting?

Just what I need, MORE ME.

I censor myself so much, I don't know when I'm lying to myself any more. It's been getting worse lately; I'm more and more aware of how many people read this place, which makes it harder to put things like this here. This isn't written for you, it's written only for me. It's my survival mechanism. It's my sabotage of my mind. I betray my secrets so I can't keep them. This isn't written for you, but you read it, and without you reading it, it doesn't work. What's the point of exposing a secret if no one notices it? I'm sorry, if this is not what you came here to read, but I need to take it out, and put it down, here. I don't want sympathy or pity, I don't want advice or attention, and I don't want to talk about it. Just need it out, out, out. So, now, I take this space back.

This is Tessadom. The shit smells like fucking roses.

Incidentally, that is why I haven't been so hot on emails lately. It's a private me that checks my mail. It's a private me that's lost her voice and can't say anything to you. Responses will happen, sooner or later. (My money is on later.)

I don't know what I need to do to bring myself out of this, which isn't a position I've ever really been in. I've always known how to pick myself up, but this time, I don't have much reason to do so. Was it Nietzsche who said (paraphrased) that man can tolerate any how, as long as he has a why? I have no why. Don't know where to look to find one. Didn't even realise I'd lost the last one. There's nothing I can do, except wait for life to do what it does, and change. There is only time.

Until then, I'll lie on the floor like a melodramatic twat and weep at sad songs. I just preordered/downloaded Ghosts I-IV, the new album by Nine Inch Nails, which Reznor appears to have tailor-made just for me. In The Fragile and Still I found the most resonance. I consider all NIN albums to be fucking OARSUM, but those two resonate with an emotional complexity and maturity that gets in my blood and lives in my bones. Some call it self-indulgent. I call it beautifulperfectsoundtracktomythoughts. Ghosts I-IV has that same breath-taking resonance. It is pianos and cellos and so thick with mood I can taste it, and it tastes like-

It starts with music. It ends with music. Just ignore all that wank in the middle.