This post is insomnia speaking. The second night in a row, long, frustrating nights. The usual solution to sleeplessness is to let my mind roam until it unearths the splinter of thought that won't let me sleep. Hasn't happened so far; I've lain awake thinking of fucking huge essay (gnawed my fingernails incessantly today), Japan (should apply soon. Do I really want to go? How on earth will I say no if I get a cadetship interview offer?), whether I can visit Europe on the way back (everyone I know seems to be fleeing the country), my year 12 media CAT that I'd forgotten/repressed. That was a surprise thought. The film wasn't great, a wanky exposition of a high school friend of mine, a gloomy goth. I filmed him looking moody walking, looking moody smoking, oh, you get the drift. The sole redeeming feature was the interview I did with his dad which I put over the top as audio, so you hear him talking about how he doesn't understand his son, but would like to. I think it brought them closer together, in an embarrassing, almost anthropological outcome. Then, mind lifts away, I listen to laughter from downstairs; what our house calls a gag session is in progress, five or so people sitting round the table vying for hilarity. Should I go downstairs and join in and give up the pretence of sleep? Nah. Unconsciousness can't be too far away. Oh, here we go: at last the splinter rises to the top, a little shy perhaps, and a little self-aware of its importance. I think of something Laura told me on the phone recently: I wondered who I'd miss, I wondered who would linger in my mind, she says (she's elsewhere). Who will I miss in Japan? Is this why I'm going, to achieve a kind of clarification? See, my approach to friendship has always kinda worried me: I come in close to someone, form a link for a while and then find I'm too happy-go-lucky, unable to think of the minutiae of friendships. When I'm with a friend, I'm intensely there with them (most of the time) but when I'm not, they vanish, retreat back to their own lives. I just live from now to now, only rarely linking up with the greater, linear flow of time and events. In that respect, I'm a bad friend: I forget birthdays, have no idea what to buy for presents because I don't know people well enough to assume their tastes for half an hour. So do I have the capability to have a true friendship? Mmm. Still undecided. Points in my favor: two year relationship under my belt (though probably closer to friendship). Points against: I got bored.

I meander on from who would I miss, to (of course): god, I want to be in love and to be loved. I'm tired of the inequalities of lovers, tired of heartbreak and airports, this year of living like this. I swill this around my mind for a while. A common thought at the moment, but one that strikes only at night. It gets nowhere, as always.

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Someone just found my blog by typing 'kiddy porn' into Google. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic.
Still, if a single passing mention for some kind of bad social satire from months ago gets me high up on the kiddy porn Google lists, Interpol must be doing their work. No doubt I'm under constant surveillance though.

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Reading the personals again. I think I have a new favourite.
"Man with herpes seeks understanding woman."

Or this, which has provoked much merriness in our little household:
"Inexperienced young man sought by attrac. older woman for relationship"

We've been daring each other to reply and set up a date, just for the hell of it. But what if it was my grade five teacher? What then?

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Death's still around. A family friend with malignant melanoma; successful, hard working, 2IC of a big company, three kids, good marriage, nice house in Queensland, too much sun exposure earlier on. A friend of my brother: testicle cancer. Fucking cancer. It's more than a disease. If we, the people living now, are the constant migrants, the unsettled, the existentialists, the post-Christians, the now people, then cancer is our antithesis, the looming, the ponderous creeping betrayal from within.

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Still missing her. I don't feel remotely capable of seeing anyone. This is most frustrating.

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(this is from last night - jumbled, not quite coherent, but hey)