197th email

From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@hotmail.com >
Sent: Wednesday July 31st, 1999 22:21 PM
Subject: I’m actually feeling a little guilty

Sorry Dom, only just got your email...servers been down…been driving me crazy…I thought you might have emailed and I kept checking every five minutes…

Anyway back online now…

Well today was meant to be uneventful…was going to try and compose some music…that didn’t work…beginning to think that maybe the music thing isn’t for me…

it didn’t help that my mother rang to tell me my father had been in contact about the blunt assessment I made of him a couple of weeks back…she thinks I should be more sensitive…but come on, he’s a terrible father…and really I should have nothing to do with him…

…it also really worries me that she always defends him…I mean he cheated on her…

Anyway this stuffed my whole creative spirit and any attempt to write lyrics always had the touch of Plath about it…here’s an example:

“Why do I scare you, Daddy?

I’m small and harmless

Why do you scream when you see my, Daddy?

People say I look just like you…”

So indulgent, it drives me crazy…

So I went for a walk…before I knew it, I was near the city…I thought about walking to the University to see you…didn’t even need you to see me…just wanted to see you…through the window would be fine…

but as I got close to the edge of the city, near Roma Street…I saw Elsa…I think it was Elsa…she was in this car…in the passenger seat…talking to the driver…stopped at the traffic lights…

we made eye contact in that brief moment and I saw something in her face…something like she knew…or I knew…or something secret…I know that seems vague…but that’s the best I can come up with…it was if we understood each other somehow in this brief moment…

…but as I said…it might not have been her…

Anyway this event made me think of you more…and suddenly some lyrics popped into my head…

“In the ocean there’s this buoy

I cling to him in timeless sight

He has a little red light on top of his head

That helps me find him in the blackest night”

Got a melody for it too…I think it’s a little chick-folk…but perhaps with some grunty guitar behind it it could be an ironic pop song…

Fuck…what do I know? It’s probably shit…

Are you at the Uni bookstore tomorrow? I can pretend to be a customer if you like and you can show me something by Henry James while we chat about our infidelity…

I think I’m feeling a little guilty or something…

23rd email

----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Sunday, May 9th, 1999 19:23 PM
Subject: RE RE RE Please ignore the last e-mail

Okay buster…do you want me to tell you that I wanted to be kissed?
Do you want to me to tell you that I thought of you kissing me?
Do you want me to tell you that it hadn’t occurred to me but then I read your e-mail and I did think about you kissing me?

The truth is the sentiment of a kiss is very appealing…and that’s it…just the idea…

Not the people involved…not you…not even me…just the idea…

I know that sounds harsh…but it saves me from getting confused…

I do get confused…and I learnt that if I just focused on the idea and blurred everything around it…the world became easier to understand…

Simply I just break it down into behaviour, not personality…

For if I break it down into personality then there is you and there is me and there is us and there are the people in my past and there is my family and there are those in the public eye and there are those people you like and those you don’t like and there are the people that you see most days but never talk to…

And then I get confused and abandon all that I believe in.

Have you read Nietzsche? Or even Sylvia Plath? If you read them, you’ll get what I mean.

Not that I mean to sound mean…just being honest to my own beliefs…you know…

And I’m not cold…some say I am…but I’m not…I care so much I want to hurt myself sometimes…do you ever feel like that?


Stacey

PS Okay here’s a snippet of what I edited out of my drunken email:

“…and when we played the ‘let’s pretend we’re old people and married’ game and you confessed you had an affair, it actually hurt…even though it wasn’t real and we were riffing…it still hurt…

it was odd how it hurt…

I guess I was in the moment and truly felt the betrayal…

I remember saying that I knew…but I didn’t…it took me by surprise…

I wanted to cry (and for a split second) hit you…and then I remembered it was all a game…so to save face…I said I knew and I didn’t care…fuck, I hate my pride…”

PPS And dog name suggestion #1: Tom Woof or Virginia Woof for that matter.

(and please don’t let your dog read this email…not only is it private but I’d hate him to think I was being insensitive)