Metal City - Hai Ina Ia Mai Ana Ka Puana

Brain Audit, July 16, 2004.

I'm going to tell the truth to all of your swell guys and girls who read this site, because this week has been one of the more dishonest weeks of my life. Hey. Lower that eyebrow - this isn't going to hurt, and it isn't anywhere near as sinister or dark as it sounds. I've been sick all week, with a cold that has kicked my flailing body across the floor of life - and, compounding that, it has been one of the most bizarre weeks I can remember.

And, as a result, I have lied to you. I'm not happy about it, and I'm sure YOU'RE not happy about it - but there it is.

What have I lied about?

I haven't been writing as much as usual, and I attributed that to the fact that I've been particularly under the weather, but in actuality the reasons run a little deeper than that.

I'm just not sure that I can do it anymore.

Oh, hey. Come on. Surely you could see this coming, couldn't you? If any of you have been following the site with any kind of attention, this shouldn't come as any great shock. I'm just calling it as I see it, and as I see it, my reasons for working have changed.

Whereas once writing was something I did to make myself elated and ecstatic about the future - a future in which I would be doing what I loved, and earning a living, and being able to make people happy with my work - it has become a constant reminder of just what a dead-end I'm standing at, and how my reticense to acknowledge that - in addition to my sad efforts to save myself - have dropped into dangerously pathetic territory.

Even though I try to avoid these Slice O'Life posts, because they're narcissistic - I'm going to spit one out for you, just so that you can see where I'm coming from, and just so I can see where I'm coming from.

See, I've been studying writing and writing writing and editing writing and illustrating writing and hypertexting writing for quite a while now. A sizeable portion of my life has been dedicated towards being as diligent in learning my craft and discipline - eight years, at a tertiary level, and now I'm twenty-six. I have no job. No money. I live with my parents. I can't find work in any capacity writing or editing a damned thing. I'd edit fucking restaurant menus if I had to - but I can't seem to get a foot in the door in any way. And I'm sick and tired of it. I'm so sick of it - and it makes me feel so horribly, nauseatingly sorry for myself to think of how much I've sacrificed - for nothing.

"But David!", you cry, "You got an MA, right? That's not nothing, right?"

Wrong. See, in the Fairytale Wonderland that is Uni - I was great. I lectured, I wrote, and I was successful - even in the face of some quite frighteningly savage odds, including some of my Beast Friends. And, I stayed at home - alone - for three years, because I was sure that I was doing the right thing, and I was sure that it would all pay off.

So, I stayed at home, and I worked like a madman, and I looked after Grandma, and I watched my cat die, and I watched my Grandma die, and the whole time I only had a handful of friends. REAL friends are horribly rare things - and when you're left on your own for sometimes days and days at a time, they become even more precious. And, so, I stayed, and I battled, and I fought the system, and I nearly went out of my mind, and I went into Uni and I told them that it was crushingly lonely and they needed to do something - but they didn't - and so, I was just there, staring into a screen for hours and hours at a time.

And then it was over, and my supervisor laughed at me when I asked him what I was going to do next, and then they threw me out and I never heard from them again. But, not being one to drop everything, I dusted off, and I sallied on, and I started looking and looking and looking and looking and LOOKING and everywhere I went, I was told that I was underexperienced, or overqualified, or that I simply had nothing that anybody sane could want, but I didn't believe them, because - after all - after eight years working like a dog while people I knew dropped out and found their way, how could that possibly be?

It's not like I even liked school in the first place. On the contrary, I hated school. School was an insane nightmare. It was a pornographically violent Escher print, which I was trapped inside for twelve years - and after fleeing with fingers that don't straighten, wrists that hurt in the cold, a permanently curved spine, and several cigarette burns - I ran into the welcoming arms of academia, and promptly had my second bout of intensive therapy. The difference being that this time, it had nothing to do with Paul McCartney.

I hated it more than you can ever imagine. This wasn't the normal 'I hate school, I'd rather be playing Mario' kind of hatred, but a hatred which still scares me, on recollection, with its intensity. I would have to have a shower every night, as well as every morning, because somewhere in my brain-damaged mind, I could smell the place on me, and I could feel it - I felt dirty. I would go there and actively stand around hating the place - hating the people, hating the teachers, hating the way I was treated, hating the way I was perceived, and hating the whole fucking system, which seemed oddly geared towards protecting people that if you saw them out in the real world, you'd cross to the other side of the street.

But, I stayed at uni - and I stayed, and stayed, and stayed. And the truth is, Uni wasn't much better. It wasn't violent - but I sure never felt welcome, or popular, or even particularly liked. It was just another caste system, where those who were lucky enough to be genetically endowed with the right stuff for that particular moment in time were treated like mighty, all-powerful gods, while everyone else enjoyed the far less pleasant label of mud-dwelling salamanders, peering out of the fetid swamp in case a morsel of popularity was accidently discarded and floated their way. Unfortunately, I'm not such a good swimmer - especially in mud. So, my undergraduate degree was certainly a horrendous, depressing, dehumanizing experience. But, do you know what the weird thing is? The way I kept going was by telling myself - constantly - that 'the next thing will be better'. Undergraduate life sucked, but I was sure that Honours would be great - and THAT was where I was going to find my feet. As it turned out, Honours was a load of fucking bullshit, and the teachers were a bunch of anally-retentive straights, who had no interest in actually doing anything with any daring or originality, and they simply wanted the same old drivel about Jane Austen and Virginia Woolfe. So, I was sure that 'Postgrad would be great! Yeah! That's where the SERIOUS shit gets done! That's where the people who really WANT to learn will do it, and that's where I'll specialise!'

But postgrad was just another pile of bullshit. I remember when I first got to Deakin, the postgrads had a meeting at a cafe in Preston. I showed up, and I remember this - it was a hot day, and I was so excited, and I was listening to Elvis Costello, which was odd for me since I hate Elvis Costello - and I was dead certain that this was going to be a gateway to everything I'd been promised since the first time a teacher picked up a story-in-crayon from when I was in prep and said 'Wow! You're really good at this!'

But, no. It was the same bullshit all over again. A bunch of mindless, dribbling, pretentious shitbags, with their fucking emo glasses and their fucking red wine and their fucking poetry, and their fucking fake laughs. And the worst part was that they all knew each other, and they were all friends, and I assume that they had all grown up together as undergraduates, and in a scene like that - there was just no place for someone like me to fit in. I was wearing a fucking black trenchcoat in the middle of summer because I desperately wanted to fit in and look the part and that was the only thing I had that didn't make me look like I was a glue-sniffing 13 year old squish-head, but it certainly didn't work. And I sort of sat there awkwardly, being ignored - every time I tried to say something, or tried to add something to the conversation, or tried to join in - I was just flat-out ignored, or drowned out by a hideous, snide chorus of fake, pretentious, faux-intellectual laughter - which doesn't come from the belly as a laugh should, but is pushed out of the chest in short, controlled bursts - stinking up the air with breath that reeked of red wine and bruschetta.

After my first supervisor ditched me, these meetings stopped, and even though I didn't care because the people had no interest in talking to me, and there was really no reason for me to show up - at least there was a flicker of hope that one day, they'd talk to me, and I'd say something memorably witty, or memorably snarky, or memorably stupid-yet-ironic, or memorably memorable, and they'd remember me, and at the very least one of them would ask me out for a cup of coffee or something. But that never happened, and Jenny left - leaving me an email that read 'I'm not your supervisor anymore. Sorry. Gone to Melbourne Uni.', and that was that.

But, shit, I tried to look on the bright side. And after being given to Kamahl, that disgusting, pretentious, arrogant, worthless motherfucker, Kamahl proceeded to tell me why I wasn't, was never, never would be, and never COULD be as great as he was - I was a writer of idle, airy piffle, while he wrote powerful, mind-shattering poetry by curling his massive penis around a quill dipped in india ink, scribbling on parchament by candlelight in his garret. I was some fuckwit from the suburbs, I drove a Torana and made excuses for Cold Chisel, and - shit - I was wearing a Bruce Springsteen shirt, so there was obviously no way in hell that I could ever compare. And after I gave the faculty a 'Me Or Him' declaration of war, he told me that I was worthless gutter scum, and that I couldn't write, and I was an awful human being. That was so funny. I asked Kamahl what he thought I should do when I finished, once. And do you know what he told me? "David, I don't care. I'm not paid to care."

And he wasn't paid to care, and soon enough - he wouldn't be paid to be my supervisor, as he removed himself from my case, and I was handed over to the terminally negligent, terminally absent, terminally disinterested head of the English faculty, who told me about his books, and told me about his reviews, and told me that he thought my novel was good - but insane. And then, it was all over - and I was summarily booted out, as Michael's incompetence reached new heights, and he didn't file the forms correctly, and didn't bother to organize markers, and basically didn't give a fuck because, after all, he was a Serious Writer, while I was just a cunt of some kind, and why the fuck should be be interested in helping out a dickhead like me? Wasn't I the motherfucker who came in wearing a fucking Nekromantik shirt? I obviously was never going to be a part of the serious literary community - I never wore a turtleneck, I never had a yearning for 'really good cheese', and my main criteria for music was 'does it fuckin' rock, mate?', rather than 'Mr. Zimmerman has obviously made a sizeable thematic, aesthetic, and iconographic contribution to the genre..'

And then I was on my own. What a weird time that was. Grandma was dead, and her ashes were in my Mum's room, and Sophie was dead, and I didn't have a fucking clue what to do next. Not one. I had absolutely no idea. So, I dusted myself off, and kept trying to move foward. But where to go? So, I applied for everything I could find - anything that said 'writing' or 'editing' in the job description, because - after all - how can you spend eight fucking years studying something, and be completely unqualified at it? That's not possible. Logic dictates that it is a ridiculous notion. But, as time proved, logic doesn't always apply - and it turned out that I had absolutely nothing that I could do. So I whined and compalined and railed and yelled and I shook, rattled, and rolled - and found out about RMIT.

But now, I don't even feel like doing that. And don't you point your finger at me and call me a defeatist, or anything of the sort. I have had the patience of a saint, and I am running out.

Look, I don't mean to whine. And moan. Or maybe I do. Because maybe this isn't just a case of whining. Maybe I am feeling a case of righteous fury.

Ahh, what do I care. Why am I apologising? What's that all about? After all, if you're bored, you'll just kill of this windor. Or you'll go back to looking for porn, or reading LoobyLu, or whatever the fuck it was you were doing before you got here. Not that I'm saying that I WANT you to. Preferably, you will find this immensely fascinating and revelatory, regarding it as a uniquely honest and heartfelt insight into the inner life of a young man; and a cross-section of a life in utter disarray.

Okay. You've got me. I'll admit it. Utterly degrading and humiliating myself at RMIT last week has made me feel even worse about this than usual. And don't look at me like that, and don't call me a drama queen. There's more to it than that.

I just can't tell whether I started writing because I thought that I'd be successful at it, or whether I thought I was successful because I could write. Either way, I'm starting to run out of steam. I'm just tired of having no money, tired of slaving away for nothing, tired of feeling like I'm getting nowhere, tired of nothing feeling fresh, tired of just jogging on the spot. It's not that I don't love the comments I get on here - I do. Gem and Adam and Kathryn and Perth Dave, and the other strange, freaky people who email me - you guys are such an incentive to think, and put things together, and part of the enjoyment of any creative venture is seeing other people appreciating your work. But, the truth is, I'm starting to regret the path I've been on over the last few years. I just wish that I'd done something like accounting, or business, or hospitality, or something simple - whether it obviously leads to point A. and point B. Everyone says 'Oh, but it takes a long time, just keep at it and be persistant' - but that's easy to say when you're not broke, and you're not desperate to find your footing anywhere you can, and it is easy to say when you're not utterly desperate for a sign that your life is going to begin, and all the work you put into something hasn't been in vain - and that there was a point to it all. I'm not seeing that sign - I just feel like I'm putting off the inevitable.

I was sick this week, and Ellen came over and stayed with me for a couple of nights, and we sat and watched movies and went to the supermarket in the middle of the night and did all kinds of silly things. She's gone home, and went out tonight. Here's the weird thing - after she left, the debris of Ellen was scattered around the house; the debris being empty biscuit boxes, and receipts, and some muffins that she gave me, and for some reason I really, really missed her. And that's when I came to a shocking realisation: I am totally and utterly out of touch with what it is like to be around people, and what it is like to have normal relationships with people. I've been so isolated for so long - no girlfriends, no beginnings of girlfriends, no close bonding, none of that stuff - that looking around the house and seeing things sitting on benches and tables that I didn't specifically put there seemed incredibly strange and alien. I'm just not used to it - and that was scary. It just sort of reminded me of just how long it's been that I've been here on my own, and I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I'd gone another way. If I'd just gone and studied accounting or something, and worked in an office, and knew all the people from the office - would I have a bagful of great memories, instead of this weird, hollow feeling that I carry around?

I'm just sick of having bad memories. And I thought RMIT would be different, but I've already managed to prove that I'm a graceless dork. Might not seem like much to everyone else, but for some reason - it's important to me. I just wanted to be different this time, and I've already planted the seeds in people's minds that I'm a buffoon - without even opening my mouth.

I've been having these dreams. I just sit up and turn everything over and over again in my head, and I try and work out how I'm going to get out of this mess. I try and figure out if there's something I've missed - some crack in the wall that I didn't see before. But I never come up with anything, and then I fall asleep - and I have awful dreams. After RMIT the other night, I had a dream in which someone pasted posters all over the buildings with a picture of me, telling everybody every embarassing moment I've ever had. And last night, I woke up and I didn't know where I was - I was sure that there was something under the bed, and that it was reaching up to grab me. And I jumped out of bed, and ran out into the corridor, pulling all the sheets and blankets off the mattress. I was sweating and panting, and I hid in the bathroom, until I realised that I was dreaming - but for a while, I was sure that something was trying to get me.

I was in the supermarket today, and I stopped to look at the cover of the evening paper, and there was a story about a little girl in Sydney. Apparently, a nine-year old girl was set on fire while playing in a park. I couldn't believe it, so I reached down and I picked up the paper and looked at it - and when I read the story, it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears right there in the shop. I'm such a sook. But, still - it's true. I just felt so unbelieveably awful for the poor little thing - and the image of her screaming and crying while her nylon clothes burned and adhered to her body, engulfed in flames, made me feel almost lightheaded. I really hope she's okay. That might sound redundant, and obvious, and a pointless thing for any rational human being to say - but somehow, that's the simplest that I can write down how I felt about it. I hope she's okay. This is a complete and total detour from everything I've been talking about, but I just wanted to throw it in. I don't know why. Maybe just in case any of you haven't heard about what happened to her. Now you do.

So, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I don't feel confident about writing anymore - I can't even find anything part-time to earn money that has anything remotely to do with writing or editing. I'm too deathly scared to even try to do anything with the book I wrote for my M.A. And when I sit down to write something for Metal City, instead of feeling like I'm doing what I was put here to do, and feeling proud of what I'm writing, it just reminds me of how trapped I am, and how impotent I feel because I can't find a way to survive. I go through these bursts of confidence and excitement at what is going to happen - but as the days fuse into one another, and time limps painfully on, those feelings just disappear - revealing the question that continues to gnaw at me and plague me, stopping me from sleeping and rattling around inside my head until I think I'm going to go insane: What in the hell am I doing with my life?

I'll try to write more next week. But - you know how it is.

Posted by David at July 17, 2004 12:06 AM | TrackBack