Mutations

I was revisiting Beck's "Mutations" album yesterday. MAN. It's like wearing a warm liquid suit. Mmm, comfy.

Sometimes I get a chance to listen to the music I love again, and I hear beautiful drones forming, or feel little sparks of light in happy areas of my brain. I think the dead zone of musicality I've been wedged in for so long like some kind of tuneless Aron Ralston is mostly due to not having the same access to my music as I used to. It's very silly. I blame iPhone. I still have an iPod nano somewhere I should be using, I should really dig it out so I can at least have nuggets of my collection.

Thanks for your help on that one, Visual Thesaurus.

Anyway my point is, that's a great album, and it gave me ideas. Ideas. I don't get those very often.

Perhaps ironically, Jacob and Bart, the two fine chaps who suggested I channel my creative energy into the form of a song per month (each), are heinously prolific. Or perhaps that is the opposite of ironic. I can't decide.

For example: Bart created the artwork for this album for Jacob, just for kicks. Jacob then took it upon himself to make the fictional songs real. What a beautiful freak!

As Jacob becomes more involved in the songwriting, my contributions get smaller. I have no problems with that, particularly because some of our best stuff has been initiated by his newfound genius, but it does give my own typical nervous energy a tiny sense of, well, redundancy. I realise this is melodramatic at best. Fortunately as the singer, my position is assured for a while, anyway.

Being in the studio is pretty much the best of all things, especially when there is also chocolate inside said studio. Hearing songs that I've nurtured since the babydom of a few strummed guitar chords grow into strong melodic creatures of their own is hugely rewarding. You should hear what Mallow grew into. She's a force to be reckoned with.

That was a long winded way of saying: music breeds music. I will write more when I take the time to listen more, and awaken that magic little feeling again.

Also, I just received a text from Jacob, saying he just wanted to say hi. My band has awesome people in it.

Happier in the Canyon

Seeing as songwriting is about the only thing I've done lately that even remotely relates to this blog, I'm going to milk it. The surprise song has been utilised as a weapon of love on the occasion of our guitarist's engagement party. A weapon of love. This band is dangerous, man. We make people cry. Curse this talent!

The song is called "Happier in the Canyon" and Jacob started writing it as an ode to the day he proposed to his lady love. He wrote all the music and some words in the bridge and then went "uuh, I don't know how to finish this" and asked if I'd help him make it into a real song. Of course I obliged. I wrote some stuff about rivers and stars and life journeys and it was all very straightforward and simple and sweet. I'm usually a bit uncomfortable being so direct in love songs. But, sometimes when you know the purpose of the song, it just kind of writes itself. And best of all, I think she liked it.

The spaces in between

So, the 22nd came and went, and 6 postcards failed to materialise. There was only one that I wasn’t really expecting to get back, and they’re ok. I didn’t want to learn how to surf anyway (water is cold, and also wet! Two things I don’t like very much). Another is excused due to the lateness of her inclusion and the fact she had a baby almost immediately. But still.

The whole experiment inadvertently took on an emotional life of its own as I took the rollercoaster ride of checking what the postman had brought each day. For the first few days, nothing. Then one. Then a dribble. Then a swarm. First the postcards from those I knew I could rely on, and the wide-eyed wonder of the challenges they proposed. The warmth in realising how well they knew me. Then those on the outer, who I thought might palm the entire thing off as some outlandish flight of fancy, but humoured me anyway. Delight in their deliberate thoughtfulness. Then the surprises, the people to whom I’d cast a wide net but wasn’t sure they would rise to the occasion; the recognition of handwriting from people long lost and a subsequent stirring of affection.

I guess I’d sort of expected not to get all 29 postcards back, but what surprised me in the end is which ones didn’t come home. Every flourish of childish excitement at the unexpected ones, I now realise is countered with a short sharp pang at those who didn’t deem the project important enough. Who didn’t deem me important enough.

Now the deadline has passed, I will admit that I secretly hoped somebody would ask me to get a tattoo, but oh well. I also hoped I would be given the justification to learn how to drive and learn some skills in the kitchen, so it evens out. Perhaps fortunately, the ever-prepared Jacob Sewell considerately provided me with four challenges instead of one. I’ve really only taken up 3 of them, but that at least takes my tally to 26 challenges.

That leaves me three challenges. For bonus points, I am filling the gaps.
1. Give blood.
2. Learn conversational Japanese.
3. Find out more about my parents.

Giving blood is something I’ve always thought I should do, since high school, but never got up the gall to go through with it. The Japanese sounds like a big one, but I really just want to learn enough to help me figure out where the train station is and how to order some sake when we visit there next July. It’s a flying visit, 4 nights in Tokyo, but I dare say that’s plenty of time to get tremendously lost on the way to the train station and accidentally order octopus brains. Hence, a basic understanding of Japanese would be nice. The parental thing is something I literally just came up with. My Mum and Dad got married late in proceedings and are quite inhibited about their lives before me and before each other. It’s intriguing. I have hints about who they were, but often I feel like I don’t really know them. They’re not big talkers.

I’ve also realised there are other goals I have quietly set for myself – the vegetarian Thursday thing; trying to read all of the books on our bookshelf before going to the store and drooling over more of them; drinking more water instead of soft drinks or cordial; the “no non-essential spending” weeks. I’d be doing these things anyway, so don’t worry, I’m not trying to cheat, but it is just curious the way we make these shifts without giving them too much thought.

Sunday songwriting

A quiet Sunday. How unexpectedly lovely. I've done some chores, been reprimanded by my Wii Fit, watched some stupid videos on the internet, ate some spring rolls. Carly-le called and let me know she registered for the Sydney to Gong bike ride, so that's awesome. And I finished a song, which I've now sent to Jacob to listen to... it's harmony central in the world of Garageband. I spoke to Bart yesterday about the doubling up of certain tasks, but his postcard specifically mentioned that the song has to be about one of the challenges I'm doing. This was not one of those songs. I may have time to squeeze one in before dinner though. The actual process of writing a song isn't that difficult. It's writing one that doesn't suck that is the real struggle. The beauty of Bart's challenge is, the song doesn't necessarily even need to be 'good', in theory... it's just a method (although being 'good' would be a nice bonus). I'm aware I spend too much time overthinking my music. Being forced to write something once a month, without the pressure of it being for the band, is going to be very mind-opening for me. "Even G, C, and D can be beautiful if the vibe is right." Those 3 chords work for a reason, even if Matchbox 20 did ruin it for all of us for a while there.

I got 2 more postcards this week, so I currently have a total of 20 challenges. Receiving one from my old english teacher was amazing, as I wasn't actually sure I'd found her; and I can't say I wasn't relieved when another challenge arrived which was to merely read a certain book.... and it wasn't even Ulysses or War & Peace or anything painful like that (I tried to read Moby Dick once but must admit I was well and truly beaten by about page 30). A few more challenges like that one might be nice. If I am to complete a full 29 challenges in 52 weeks that means I have to average completion of one challenge every 1.7 weeks or so. And I'm already 2.5 weeks into this thing. Ah.

Next week is my very last week of crazy shit, and then I can concentrate on this a little more. Step 1: driving lessons. Oh yeah, and I'm cooking salmon tonight.

Make 'em Laugh

One of my challenges involves making a random stranger laugh every week. It has now been 8 days since the 29 Before 30 challenge began, and I have outright failed in Week 1. It's not for lack of trying. I'm just not very good at it yet. It's all a bit daunting. I thought children would be a good starting point, so I began pulling faces at youngsters on the train. This didn't work. I did a dance for the little Asian lady in the sushi store. She beamed and nodded supportively, but nothing that resembled even a chuckle. I even asked a guy at the patisserie what time it was when Sean Connery went to Wimbledon, and he said he didn't know, and I said tennish, and he looked at me blankly. I was a little disheartened after all of that.

Craig, I'm hoping that after tripping on the starting line, I am allowed to average my 52 strangers out over the course of the year to give me a chance to catch up. I'm going to find a way to do better at this, I swear...

My 'good deed a week' challenge I have sort of merged with this one, but in my defence, Jacob did set me 4 challenges instead of one. However I did exchange a five dollar note for some change for a lady who needed it for the parking meter. Does that count?

Meditation

It is pretty much mania at work just now. Particularly today, now that my boss has gone on maternity leave, one of the guys is on leave to go skiing for a week, and the last member of my team is, well, not here. That makes me the whole academic team (I work for a university). It's been really fun. Really.

So I have taken up the first of my challenges today. According to Jacob, I am required to "meditate for a minimum of 10 minutes a day", so I decided to take a dedicated 'time out' out of working day to try and do that.

Yeah, that worked out well.

Lesson 1: Meditation is hard. What's up with that? Isn't it just sitting with your legs crossed and thinking of nothing? Climbing into the void? Swimming in the colours?

I went up to the rooftop level, empty of students, and sat on a table in the sun, eyes closed, back straight, breathing slow. The sun's warmth on my skin was a welcome visitor. I heard the vents humming. I heard the crane beeping. Then I remembered there was a camera on the roof and thought of the guys in security watching me. A siren wailed from down on the street. I wondered if my timer was working. I fiddled with my phone for a bit to check.

So. I did ok for what I figured to be around 8 minutes, but ultimately I tried and failed on Day 1. That's ok. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. I like that this is something I have to unexpectedly learn, and not just immediately be able to do.

I expect this will also come in handy when trying to switch off the notion of how I'm going to complete everything else on my list... which I will post as a separate page shortly.

8, 9, 10...

I put these in the mail today:

LUCY...


JACOB...


TIM...

I love this photo.

Jacob and me, circa 2000. This was the night we decided to start a band.


I'm so glad I still have this photo, rather than it probably being destined for slow damp degeneration with the rest of the shots from this roll of film.