Sweet blog.

Man! I just added all these old music blogs that I used to read back in the day, and now I'm "following" them. That shit is SWEET. It's so great to return to this. Except, holy crap, I am already blogging about blogging. This is a bad sign, no? Not to mention irrelevant. Never mind.

And here they are.

I discovered an old friend has a new blog today. After I'd come away from his wordsmithery, my heart suitably warmed, I remembered how much better at this he is than I am. And also that he used to make me want to write, in the beginning. And he should probably go back onto the list of 29. So should a few other people. Sometimes a fleeting moment can make the difference. You don't need to be best friends with somebody to make an impression on their life.

Ok! So, after all these posts of pointless blathering, mostly for my own benefit and to warm up the ol' blog muscles, I've decided on a final 29. And even though I'll probably look at the list again in, oh, say 2 minutes time, and I'll probably want to change it, I'm not going to. This is it. This is The List as of Monday 8th March 2010 (with the briefest of explanations as to how they fit into the puzzle):

Kat Chisholm - one of my first flatmates when I moved to Sydney.
Mel Sim - my first roommate when I moved out of home.
Jaimi Chivers - met through work and bonded over music.
Ben Pask - met through work, sort of, and I ended up marrying him.
Jacob Sewell - met through uni and we started a band together.
Carla Bentley - met through work and bonded over vodka and cranberry.
Tracey Cumming - one of my best friends through school, and continues to be.
Mum & Dad - they conceived me, and all that.
Kim Thomas - boss of a company I worked for for 3 years.
Kim & Rondalyn - family friends, like younger sisters.
Heath Player - the Prince Charming to my Snow White circa 1989.
Kim Charpentier - spontaneous high school music friend.
Tim Freedman - pseudo boss, pseudo musical comrade.
Cassie Griffin - an old flatmate from the Newtown massive.
Ros Hanley - met through a friend, friend disappeared, we kept each other.
Sister Eileen Mary - my kindergarten teacher.
Jason Buckley - my high school music teacher.
Meredith Sproule - my high school english teacher.
Lucy Buttenshaw - my piano teacher.
Katie Grintell - my very first best friend.
Bernie Hayes - the first guy to ever give me a gig.
Emma Mackney - my best friend in high school.
Bart Denaro - met through friends and shared music.
Rebecca Ashton - one of the first people I met in the UK.
Carly Hollier - met through a friend and bonded over video games.
Craig New - possibly the nicest person I ever met in the music industry.
Heather Durnan - one of my best friends in primary school.
LCD Soundsystem/James Murphy - spent 3 weeks on a bus with them once.
Karen Bird - the lovely lady who I stole and embellished this idea from.

Now it's there, I can't change it. And I'm going to start sending postcards to these people. Starting Tuesday.

OK, you know what?

Here's the thing - finding 29 people who made a huge impact on your life is really HARD. I would say most people can come up with a solid 5 or 6, and could stretch it out to 10 or 15 if they think all the way back. But after that, it gets pretty fuzzy. It reminds me a bit of trying to organise our wedding invitation list. Where do you draw the line? And what constitutes an 'influence'? All of my friends have held some kind of sway on things, I would imagine, it just depends on how largely the resulting decisions reflect on my life as a whole. Maybe I won't even know how much influence they hold until the friendship has run its course. Am I cheating if I just use my friends? Well, no. Surely not. Because things would be different if it weren't for these people. It makes my head hurt, a little bit.

I could bulk it out with rock stars or other pseudo-celebrities that had an effect on me growing up, but realistically they are not going to respond. THAT feels more like cheating.

Work is busy right now, and I'm trying to organise some gigs for the band. I'm going on holiday in just less than 3 weeks - super exciting. We get back at Easter so I want to be prepared to go on this come April. I know that means getting my shit together, but sleeping is so much more appealing just now...