Nice warm bath and a cup of tea.

I’m pretty sure that my brain only has a finite amount of space inside. Like an underwear drawer. Sometimes that amount of space even seems to get smaller, and stuff comes out when I don’t put more in. Which seems unfair, and not scientific at all.

When this happens, it’s usually my mum who suggests a nice warm bath and a cup of tea.

These two things have always been my mum’s solution to everything. When I was little, I was pretty suspicious that everything could be fixed with various forms of warm water. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realise that even though there are some things my parents shouldn’t get to have an opinion on (i.e whether Dawson’s Creek is ‘rubbish’), there are some things that make more sense than they first seem to. That, plus the fact that I don’t see thoughts falling out of my mum’s brain onto the ground, is why I should probably trust her about the about the nice warm bath and a cup of tea (NWBaaCOT) thing.

The problem with NWBaaCOTs, is that they always seem like such a waste of time.

“DON’T YOU UNDESTAND? I CANT POSSIBLY HAVE A STUPID BATH, IVE GOT ALL THESE NON-BATH RELATED THINGS TO DO, WHICH I CAN’T POSSIBLY DO WHILE I’M IN THE BATH. EVERYTHING WOULD GET SOGGY AND IT WOULD BE A SOGGY DISASTER. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?? IS IT?????”

The problem with this kind of reaction is that if you don’t do the NWBaaCOT thing, eventually everything will fall out of your brain onto the ground anyway. And then you are entirely useless and crazy, with no friends, no bath and no tea.

So what is my point here? What IS it?

I guess it’s that mum was and still is right. But not about the Dawson’s Creek thing, because I leant a lot of big words from that show.

My lovely old boots.

Mid-Brunswick Street

A mid-Brunswick Street cafe is the perfect place to reflect on the diversity of living in the city.

To my right is a presumably wealthy young American woman, having a business-like conversation with her colleague “the dress is like, classic, you know? And I thought I’d wear my hair like, classic, you know?” To my left is a presumably homeless man falling asleep in his cup of coffee, which has been provided by the cafe.

With no job to my name yet still having paid for my coffee, I decide that sitting in the middle of these two parties is probably a symbolically accurate place for me.

The bottom end (or city end) of Brunswick Street rises high on one side with social housing complexes. On the other side is a range of happily-placed community service facilities. Walking past I see:

1.              A man aged 70-ish sitting with his small dog

2.              Three middle aged men chatting outside the laundry mat

3.              Two young women walking with their young children

4.              Teenage girls in their school uniforms sitting and talking 

On initial observation, these people seem less wealthy, more culturally diverse, having more spontaneous social experiences, and (at a very superficial glance) more happy.

The top end of Brunswick Street boasts a number of cafes, restaurants, vintage clothing stores and upper-class dress shops. Walking past I see:

1.              People quietly waiting for the tram

2.              People walking to work alone

3.              People sitting in cafes “And I thought I’d wear my hair like.. classic, you know?”

4.              People buying things in shops

People are seemingly more wealthy, less social (in the spontaneous sense), more poorly dressed and (at a very superficial glance), less happy.

The middle of Brunswick Street houses a few cafes, a few dress shops, some sparse social housing and me.  In my building, people don’t talk to each other, and I don’t talk to people, because they don’t talk to me. Strange, I think.

So this gets me thinking... Why is it that when I walk past the sky-rise social housing mysteries at the bottom of Brunswick Street, people seem happier?  I’m not saying it’s a perfect observation, but maybe sometimes less money does equal more happiness.

I made these.

Also, I am playing at Libation, Fitzroy at 8.30 on Wed 22 Feb, and the Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy at 8.30 on Thursday 23 Feb. Come see!

Being Awake at 3am (not on purpose)

Lately I have been experiencing a large number of sleepless nights, for no obvious reason. Here is my list of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ associated with being awake at 3am (not on purpose).

Pros associated with being awake at 3am (not on purpose).

ü     I have more time for thinking.

ü     I have more time to read the second Harry Potter (again).

ü     As Liv Tyler says in Empire Records, “There are 24 usable hours in every day”. The movie also suggests I bake cupcakes instead of sleeping, which sounds like a delicious solution to my problem.

ü     I could count sheep if I wanted to. Just imagine how many I could count.

ü     I have more time to watch Season 3 of The West Wing.

ü     Sleeplessness adds a sense of purpose to any and all sooking that takes place the following day.

ü     Sleeplessness gives me a reason to wear make-up (to cover any bags that have taken residence under my eyes while I wasn’t sleeping – possibly while I was watching The West Wing).

Cons associated with being awake at 3am (not on purpose).

Ë   Everything seems like the worst at 3am. Definitely not the time for productive thinking.

Ë   I’d forgotten that the second Harry Potter is kind of boring. (i.e. no signs yet of possible Ron/Hermione romance.)

Ë   Hours are only usable if they are between 7am and 11pm. Before/after that they become, at most, cupcake eating time. (I also think Liv’s character’s efficient sleeplessness was drug induced and I’m not into that).

Ë   I don’t want to count sheep because that’s really boring.

Ë   Watching Season 3 of The West Wing has been found to be counter-productive. In the past this activity has resulted in 1) Me becoming so sleepy that I miss the dialogue, or 2) Me becoming so over-stimulated that rather than sleeping, for the next three hours I lie awake considering the drama, romance and comedy of the American political system.

Ë   The previous days’ sooking probably will act as a give-away that sleeplessness is not the only possible reason for me to sooking.

Ë   I have no skill in make-up - certainly not enough to be able to pretend I’m not sleepy (but maybe enough to look like a reverse panda).

Maybe tonight I’ll start on the third Harry Potter… I remember that one being better. 

Cupcakes my sister's flatmate made for Australia Day (possibly she lives with Liv Tyler).

It was either this or blogging about sandwiches.

I know that I should probably get a job soon when I start doing things that bored people do.  Like dying my hair. And considering getting a nose ring. And wondering whether I could get the same tattoo as Scarlett Johansson without regretting it.

 It’s not like I don’t have better things I could be doing with my time. I’ve got plenty do; volunteering, songwriting, job searching. Loads. But I’ve noticed lately that the part of my psyche that wants a quick-fix of success is starting to kick in.

 I think this is because I'm not giving it enough attention. When I had a job, it was the part of my brain that I took shopping, and to the movies. Now, without the cash, it’s bored and in need of fast entertainment. 

As far as I can tell there are loads of ways to entertain oneself, that don’t require cash, or self mutilation. One easy answer to this is social media, which I think is kind of upsetting (Whatever, I know blogging is social media).

 For the purpose of this post I will discuss facebook. I get that facebook is great. It’s really great. It helps me invite people to gigs, I get invited to parties, and I can get good deals on stuff like moving vans, through enquiring generally to my 250 closest friends. In a matter of moments I can know which of my friends are engaged, eating sandwiches, watching the tennis, preparing for a mountain bike ride or eating sandwiches. Awesome.

 From experience, I also know that facebook is where time goes to die. The border-er (?) you are, the more you check facebook. The more you check facebook, the more you update your status. The more you update your status the more you check facebook in case someone comments on your awesome status (i.e. Kathryn Kelly is eating a sandwich). And the more people comment on your awesome status, the more  that you think you are some kind of status-updating-queen. And the more you believe that you are a status-updating-queen, the more you should DEFINITELY FIND SOME WAY TO GET OFF THIS THING BECAUSE YOU ARE TRAPPED TRAPPED TRAPPED.

But I guess my only real problem that I really have with facebook is that I’m totally addicted to it. I hate it but I love it. And I’m not sure what the solution is.

 I could quit, but then I’d have to start blogging about sandwiches.

The dying-hair thing turned out to be serious (see photo, left-aligned).

The Neighborhood Shuffle.

I’ve lately grown a real fondness for road stuff. When I have explained road stuff to people before, they have said ‘oh, you mean hard-rubbish’. But I don’t think that I do. Because it’s not rubbish to me. No way.

Now that I am without a job, my sense of what is cheap and what is expensive has changed. For example, last year I went to Ikea and I felt like a queen. Or at least someone who was about to marry in to the royal family, but couldn’t yet afford stuff that had been pre-assembled. What a thrill it was to be able to purchase so much reasonably priced flat-pack furniture. And coriander. And meatballs. Last week, after three months of joblessness, I went to the same Ikea and rather than buying furniture or meat-goods, spent my time considering how many free Ikea pencils was socially acceptable to take home (I think three).

So road stuff is my new thing. Going for a walk or drive is now a shopping expedition. Rather than concentrating on the task at hand (fitness and/or transport), my mind has taken to scanning curbs and corners for stuff that other people deemed not worthy to have in their homes, but which I would consider truly worthy of my own in this time of need (Mum, it’s ok. I truly do not consider myself to be in ‘a time of need’).

I have always been a keen op-shopper and I like to think that road-stuff-collecting is just the logical next step. All that’s different is that 1. No one had to borrow their cousin’s ute to drag their old chair to the op-shop 2. No one (me) has to pay any cash that they don’t want to part with, and consequently 3. No charity benefits… so I guess that sucks a bit.

Now I’m in Melbourne, I live in a large apartment building where I assume a lot of other people live (though I never seem to see them… where are they?!). This apartment doesn’t really have a nature strip, but instead a section of concrete outside the building that acts as the nature strip for the whole building.  One day when I was coming back home from a business meeting (let’s say…), I noticed a box of kitchen utensils sitting on the ground on this concrete strip. When I left the building next, I noticed that a filing cabinet had joined the kitchen utensils. Next time I went, there was a jock strap (I promise this is true), which was joined by a desk. The next day it was all gone (as I write this I consider that maybe it was hard-rubbish day… but I don’t think so.).

I’ve decided that a good name for all of this is The Neighborhood Shuffle (which is also a good name for a non-confrontational partner dance).  To begin, everyone takes the stuff in their homes that they don’t like, and puts it out front.  Then everyone in the neighborhood pretends to go for a drive, and leaves their Holden Hatchback (or whatever) running while they guiltily grab the chair (or whatever) they want and makes a guilty getaway (even though they are pretty sure this is why it was there to begin with). So all the road stuff stays in the same basic area, but everyone is happy that they have less cr*p weighing down their lives, plus some extra cr*p that was weighing down someone else’s life. Seems to me like the most amazing environmentally-friendly money-saving new-stuff-getting partner dance of all time.

So long as it wasn’t just a chair that someone accidentally left out the front of their house. That would be bad.

Here is a chair that I accumulated recently in The Neighbourhood Shuffle.  I'll be playing some music this Wednesday 1 Feb at Libation in Fitzroy. Probably on a different chair.

Why Art is Great.

I’ve always told the worst stories. You know that moment when people say ‘Hey [insert your name], tell [such and such] about that time that [whatever happened.]'. I fear this moment. It’s not that I don’t like stories. I just don’t like them when I tell them. And that’s because they’re bad.

Usually it’s somewhere around the middle of the story that I’ll forget the point entirely. Because usually this is when I notice that everyone is listening. I'm not really sure how to describe what happens next, except that if feels as though I somehow float outside of my body (like a dream-sequence in a halloween episode of The Simpsons), and start watching everyone watching me. Then I usually trailed off, or grab on to any old point that’s floating around my head and pretend that it was the main point of the story from the start. Generally that goes very badly. Welcome to my brain.

This is what I like about song-writing. You get to plan the whole thing before you start, no-one asks tricky questions and at the end, and people either ‘get it’ or they don’t. And so long as you don’t make faces, it’s ok if you trail off because people will think you meant to. And if people ask you what a particular song was about, you don’t have to explain. Because art is great like that. 

But, I should probably be able to explain.

Which is one of the reasons that I’ve taken to writing this blog. The idea is to practice of writing a concise story. A story that says something. Something, and not ten things, and not nothing. Looking at last week’s blog… I’m sure I’m not there yet. But no harm no gain, right? Right? Not like it's a public forum or anything.

Someone arty told me yesterday that any idea is worth pursuing. The annoying thing about good advice is that it gives you no excuse not to take it. So this week I will practice having confidence that my stories are worth telling. 

I figure if I can limit out-of-body experiences in the process, that’s probably not a bad thing.

 I’ll be playing at Libation in Fitzroy on Wednesday 1st of February at 8.30pm.

Colder than a...

My feet are cold. Very cold, actually. And it’s the middle of summer. The middle of summer, and my feet feel like foot-shaped icy-poles.

Cold weather makes me feel like having lots of showers. In this age of water restrictions I guess that’s not cool though. And besides, my shower has one of those water-savey devices which make me think H20 is out to get me, one watery pin-prick at a time. So another shower is out of the question.

You might have guessed that I haven’t decided what this blog is about. You’re not wrong. So far we have covered my intolerance for the slightest air-chill, and my love for showers. So for lack of another idea, here is a story about a time I have been cold before. I know that you’re interested.

Before I lived in Melbourne I was in the lovely coastal town of Torquay, with my anonymous flat-mate Eliza and our pet rat Albert (who lived under the fridge). Our little flat had a lot of local history, seemingly having housed almost everyone in the town at some time or another. Generally when I mentioned my address to a ‘local’,  they had some story to tell about ‘the time I threw a TV off the balcony’ and ‘the time the car-port collapsed on my aunt’. It’s possible that my own story will be less exciting than these, as it’s about ‘the time I thought I was going to die from cold and spores’.

The little town of Torquay, it seems, gets surprisingly chilly in winter. I’m not sure if it’s the wind from the ocean, or the fact that all the tourists have gone home and so there is generally less body warmth in the air. But this chill means business.

Our flat was two-story, and I was lucky enough to have acquired the larger room at the bottom of the stairs. This room had formerly housed two people comfortably, but somehow never seemed to be enough space for me. When I arrived in the house it was summer; which is a magical time in beachy towns and seems to involve nothing but surfing and barbeques. I lived in Summer Bay, and I loved it. Slowly though, as the surf got colder and more aggressive, so too did the weather. And so too my bedroom.

Mushrooms grew out of the floor when it rained.

After a week of excess showering and no sleep (due to cold, as well as fear of spores), I came up with a brilliant plan. At bedtime, I would run into my room and jump from the doorway onto the bed (to avoid getting wet socks). Ideally, everything I needed from that point was already within reaching distance. First I put on my pajamas - sometimes over the top of the clothes I had been wearing. This allowed me to keep any body-heat that I had accumulated over the day, as well as avoid my skin coming into contact with air. From this point I created an intricate system of layers on top of my clothes-pajama base, like parfait. This involved anything up to and including a woolen jumper, tracksuit pants, socks, ugg boots, multiple blankets and beanie.

Under the covers, and dressed in what I believed to be sensible sleeping gear, I began the process of actually sleeping. This usually started by putting the doona over my head and hoping breath would warm up the bed (as well as protect me from spores). I would then shut my eyes very tight, and wait for sleep to come. Sometimes it even did.

The best part about all of this was the dreams I had, due to my eventual over-heating. Big adventure dreams. You know then ones; when you’re a pirate and it’s your job to chase antelope through the Amazon armed with nothing but a bubble-gum dispenser. Usually I would wake up when I ran out of oxygen, at which point I would remove a layer or two. The only problem was that I was so exhausted from oxygen deprivation (from being under the doona) that I may as well have not slept at all.

But at least I was protected from spores.

This tent is where I spent the coldest night of my life, at the Blueprint Music Festival in Ararat. I put this tent up all by myself (it fell down).