There’s no aphrodisiac…….

It’s a cheesy line from a Whitlam's song. I heard it in the op-shop at Bathurst, and had to leave. Fuck, I think I was one of my heart-break tunes last century some time.

Now I can’t get it out of my head. At least it makes a change from Huey fucking Luis. Like I said, my unconscious is incredibly banal. Maybe I shouldn’t be so down on Jung. Maybe there is a collective unconscious and deep down, my psyche taps into the contemporary zeitgeist. Painfully banal vapid shit.

Right now things are decently civil between Abel and I and you know, we could live like this forever, right? My stomach is so knotted that I can barely breathe. I just had one of those desperate phone calls from another Saphhist in distress. Being dumped on badly by fiercely freedom loving bitch. Some women merit the name. Her particular emotional abortion is much uglier, much messier than my sweet sad little corner of heartbreak. Fur flying, blood flowing and custody battles over the sex toys. (We’ve wordlessly decided on a basic split: I keep Bruce the star of Slit N0. 2, and she keeps Jason the Golden Phallus I think her share is worth double mine – but I reckon I need an excuse to go shopping for spanking shiny new toys so I’m not gonna cry over this one too much. I just want my Johnny Cash CD’s back. )

I digress. At least being an auntie to my friends agony, provides a nice operatic release for my own repressed dead feelings. I had a shiatsu from a friend tonight and started sobbing in his arms. It was a nice solid weep – and my appetite returned enough for us to have dinner afterwards. I got home and it knotted up again. I can’t cry, I just feel like shit. I long dark smeary smelly turd of rejection. A flabby, sad, zitty, uncoordinated, poor postured, pigeon toed, myopic, neurotic, fashion challenged, overtalking, socially challenged, insecure, poxy piece of poo. I don’t feel strong at all. Just sad.

This civility it like a slow suffocating death. I think Abel expected a hug the other night, after our first civil conversation in over a month. I nearly obliged, and while masturbating later, sneakily indulged my nostalgic fantasies for her pink bits. Bad habits are hard to break. Our fingers met as we moved a filing cabinet into my room. We moved furniture together, how sweet. We have meetings together, talk sensibly and seriously and argue for the same points. We run a gallery together, did you know? We are hosting an exhibition opening tomorrow night. What a couple! How civilised! People say I’m doing so well. They say ‘you look great, you look relaxed, you’re so calm’.

Not very deep down I feel like I’m dying. I want to scream at her and wring her neck, and my right hand involuntary twitches with a very fierce longing to ram my fist into her face. I keep a tight lid on myself. My stomach hardens and hollows itself into its own little hell. Grief has moved down off my chest and deep inside my guts. Grief, horrible horrible horrible. And now the hardness is hollowing down into that nasty little abyss of gloom and self loathing. I know this dull ache of inner despair. This is the thing that I’ve been running from, trying to be perky and manic and uppity and libidinous and cool and coping. I imagined, still imagine myself as a singular solid white column of bling. A hard glowing surface that repels all fear, dread, inertia and terror. Hard, flashing and brittle, but hard. Not the soggy Elvis contoured couch potato, no longer hiding a soppy smile of contentment. She’s dead. Abel killed her, and I’ve buried her somewhere with the last time tams packet wrapper.

Autumn has arrived in Sydney. I strode up king street today, tear stained eyes shielded by raindrops. Friendly boys offered beers in pubs, which I declined. I had better things to do than find myself suddenly sobbing in a stenching pub, or risk wearing myself down into a sodden state of hosebeast fever. I haven’t even had beers tonight and I’ve already had a fit of the Shane Warne’s. Crossed with Jane Austen. Polite and nicely worded, but hopelessly trashy texts to hopelessly undeserving recipients. Oh GOOOODDDD. During the last festy nasty spirit crushing scraggy hellish heartbreak, I copied out 4 lines of a Robert Lowell poem on four sheets of paper. I used to rearrange them on my wall depending on which particular corner of agony I was feeling that day.

My ill spirit sobs
In each blood cell
My mind’s not right
I myself am hell.

My mind’s not right
My ill spirit sobs
In each blood cell
I myself am hell.

In each blood cell
My ill spirit sobs
I
myself
am hell.
(My mind’s not right)

I myself am hell.
My mind’s not right
My ill spirit sobs
OH For FUCK’s SAKE STOP!!!

So striding, gasping beneath my sunglasses, worn defiantly under clouds, my mind, my eyes played tricks on me. Each nape of a dark headed boy I imagine was my brother, back from the dead. He’s turning around, turn around, its him, he’s back. No he’s not, you’re dreaming. And then, a swaying lean figure in a cloth clap caught my eye and my stupid brain was convinced it was an old ex, an old, old ex from a long, long time ago. One of those tragic fucking annihilating relationships based on a narcissistic swirl of mutual self loathing. My first love. What a charming child I was! Still, he’s one of the few people who I could imagine losing it with completely. Sobbing, screaming shitting all over the bed, while naked, blind, blind drunk, cursing, screaming coming, wanting to murder and wanting to die and still able to negotiate the niceties of safe sex. Never forget, I’m part of the Post AIDS generation. Needless to say, it wasn’t the ex, and I’m glad, because I really don’t need to go back there just at this point. Particularly as the one thing that keeps me going right now is reminding myself that I’m 35, I’m older and wiser than I used to be, and if I live through this I’ll be older and wiser in the future. Each day, I dream of new tragic fuckers to fuck myself over with. New ways to do even dumber shit than in the past. I’m an eternal optimist really.

Today, feeling sad and stupid and lonely and desperate and very, very confused, I went and bought … ahem…. Err… safe sex materials. And felt more dumb and embarrassed than I ever have in my entire life. Despite preaching (in an irritatingly myopic sort of way) at the FLOSS collective back in the dim dark ‘90’s that 80% of lesbians will accidentally or otherwise have a sexual encounter with a man, so they might as well face up to the fact and not die or breed in the process, I still felt incredibly awkward taking the same measures myself. Cruised around the supermarket to make sure no cute girls were around to see me. Stood back and pretended that I was looking at the toothpaste instead. Reaching forwards and grabbing lube confidently. And then being too embarrassed to pick up each box of…. Err… how would I pick the best condoms to share dildo’s with? And why didn’t I go to the tool shed instead? And I don’t want to read all those scary heterosexist descriptions, and I don’t want to think about semen. So I glimpsed at the one with the sexiest image of a woman, and hid it in my paw as I took it to the counter. Paid and packaged with no dykes in sight. Safe. Then looked at the box and realised that they were ‘extra tight fit’. Fuck! What does this say about me? My sex toys? My expectations of a bedding partner?

It’s not all this tragic. Well, the pathos comes in various shades (lets say they’re all pastel). A flush of pink as I held open the door for that cute stone butch who never meets my eye at uni. She did today. Should I suggest lavender for the Nice Bookish Lesbian? I loitered outside the library anticipating that she’d wander out and I’d get a glimpse. No luck, so I wandered desultorily around the campus, striking up random conversations with the fairer sex as the sun set and the bats swirled overhead. Lets call them Naples yellow and say minty green for that nice flirty player I ran into and wandered uselessly with. She reminds me of some boy I knew in the Bosch building. He’d could stretch a flirty pointless derive for hours, but then he also had access to amphetamines. Post pointless but pleasant minty green, I popped into the house of tomes for a quick piss before a class, and I saw the Nice Bookish Lesbian. At this point I have a terrible confession. Whenever I think of her, a Huey Luis song comes into my head. It’s a very bad sign. Well a good one, a healthy one, I have a healthy response to a winning smile, but incurably bad taste in music. I saw her and we chatted and flirted and she gave me some great advice, and she’s made my week. Just seeing her, and being so open and innocent and flirty and sweet.

I dream, of course, about falling into the loving lustful embrace of some mature amazing woman. NBL is an entirely appropriate and worthy target of such dreams, but they are only dreams. Some people slide effortlessly from one relationship to another, without the hellbitch grind of slow single self reconstruction. Like Abel. Bitch! But if they’re anything like Abel, they slide from one set of failures into another set of similar failures and self delusions. Imagine being able to call someone else a fat frigid fuckup and then fuck them off for someone else without a backward glance? No wonder she drinks. I wonder how long before the SLUT – being eloquently reassured of her youthfulness by the willing words of Abel, will find herself being accused of being overprotective, domineering, demanding, motherly, too old?

I’ve barely let myself grieve for the end of Abel. Partly because she’s still here. (any ideas anyone?). No wonder she’s being civil. I don’t know how to respond and I don’t know what to do. I’ve tidied my room, (I still can’t find my favourite shoes), and I’m trying to make this part into my space, somewhere safe, secure, functional. I avoid the rest of the house. I don’t know what to do there. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I just have to live, keep going, don’t lose my temper, don’t lose my mind. Try to weep in the arms of nice people and take care of myself. Like John Bobbit's penis. A dumb amputated thing that I hope can survive long enough to get grafted back onto someone, and then have a great career in porn! My mind’s not right. It’s time for bed. Alone