i’ve got this thing about soap

i love it. but i’m very particular. i love only 100% all natural soap. no artificial colours or perfumes. only the very best essential oils. no ti tree, or other melalucas (allergies, man).
i love this stuff more than anything. i like it that the perfumes are only strong enough to surround you in the shower and then to linger only for a moment once you’re dried off.
i love good soap so much.
i always only used perfect potion for a great many years. then i experimented with sorbolene soap, and some local hippy stuff when i moved away from brisvegas and perfect potion. but now The Mother ships it to me by the tonne. she sends local, hippy soap from tasmania to me in the mail. she secretes it about her person when she comes to visit. she stocks the downstairs bathroom with it for my bathing pleasure. oh, remember the cinnamon one? do i. i loved it so much i stole it. i took it home to melbourne with me. i really did.

i love good soap. i really do.

yer what?

it was only recently that i discovered that the bit in your ear that gets blocked up is not ‘yer station tube’ but the ‘Eustachian tube’.
i’m only mildly disappointed that there are no trains involved.

nearly 30 years of ear infections from swimming too much and living in tropical climates and suddenly things change. it was truly a revelation. thanks, dr flowers, thanks.

you might also care to know that my father and his mother (the nanna) refer to their ears (or anyone’s ears, really), as ‘yers’. i don’t know if it’s a Welsh thing, or a trying-to-be-a-toff thing, or just a weirdo family thing. but i know i’ll be surveying welshies when i’m there for the wedding in july. my readers need to know.

What’s a PhD?

The short answer? A PhD is a big long essay. More like a book than an essay. An academic book. An academic book that has do fulfil a whole truckload of requirements, the biggest of which are a) contributing new knowledge to the field and b) demonstrating a clear and excellent understanding of the literature (stuff that’s already been written) in the field of research.

The long answer?…

Continue reading “What’s a PhD?”

What exactly am I doing in my PhD?

Well, firstly, I’m doing my PhD thesis on swing dancers. Mostly Melbourne ones. I’m framing them as a fan community (a la Henry Jenkins, Matt Hills, Camille Bacon Smith, etc), and am most interested in their media uses. This media use is centred on the internet and online technology – I’m interested in talking about how swingers use online media in their face to face fan activities. I also talk about swingers as performing their fandom. That’s an idea I’m borrowing from stuff Matt Hills suggested, which dove tails nicely with Judith Butler’s work, and I think there’s one guy – Kurt Lancaster – who’s into this, that I should follow up.

Continue reading “What exactly am I doing in my PhD?”

i want

to make a page that’s static – it’s time for me to learn how to do websites properly… and of course, this in no way coincides with the need to start the next chapter, or to plan the research trip fully

i am so tired i’m asleep at the keyboard.

yesterday was surprisingly productive (after all that belly-aching), but i’m not sure about today. a trip to the gym might be in order (it makes me feel stretchier and tougher and pleasantly tired).
i think it’s the allergies… i’m so full of goob. in a kind of not-going-anywhere way. or maybe i slept too hot? well, i certainly had odd dreams. i was in england, and i was swimming in a big, very clear lake just outside the side door of a house i was staying in, which was actually a house on brunswick street in new farm, just near where the thai restaurant and the video shop were, before you get to the merthyr road intersection. anyhoo, i was swimming in this lake because i had to sake a gangly adolescent german shepherd dog who was drowning. seems his owners (who were two gay men) had decided they didn’t like him anymore, so they were doing away with him.

i’m never talking about dogs, watching ads for that new 2 dads tv show or planning the research trip before bed ever again. i end up being far too busy at night.

my djing paper

a revised version of the djing paper. Down load it here.

i’m going to keep editing it til it’s in a more deliverable form – like 3000 rather than 4500 words. i could cut out the djing bit altogether and make it a paper about swing culture generally. or i could edit out the djing bit and start again. oh well, i’ve given it another bash, and i’ll leave it for now…