I should get extra points for this.

In lieu of the 26km Coast Trek, Caroline and I went for the next leg of my Harbour Walk yesterday. We saw wildlife, swam in the ocean, and soaked up the sun. I will write more and post pictures tomorrow... when I'm gloriously unemployed.

There's an App for that.

I downloaded a ‘Learn Japanese!’ app recently of which I’ve completed the first four lessons. The CDs we’ve been listening to are good up to a point, but seem to move too quickly when you don’t have any visual reference points. It’s difficult to even pick out the pronunciation sometimes, without being able to actually see the word and get a feel for how things are put together. Knowing how to say a full sentence by rote is very different to understanding how the sentence is put together and how the words work individually within it. The App is good for this – I now understand about sentence particles, and how the Japanese avoid pronouns. Instead of saying ‘I eat’ or ‘he eats’ or ‘they eat’, you just say ‘eat’ and then use context to figure out who you mean. Sounds a bit weird but I guess it works.

Our big coast trek from Bundeena to Otford was supposed to be this weekend, but after all the coordination there were no campsites left when I called to book. Of course. I feel a bit stupid for having left it so late but it was a backhanded blessing, in a way, what with the weather being so unbearable. The main problem is that we can’t find another weekend to do it until April at the earliest, so we’ll need to get it sorted out quickly otherwise we’ll have the other extreme and it’ll be too cold.

Next weekend, however, is Tasmania. Tasmania!

All delighted people, raise your hands

I am not a good post-gig conversationalist. Sometimes there are no words. On small, miraculous occasion, you will see a show that is immeasurably bigger than you are. All I can do in those moments is awkwardly cling to myself and soak up the words of others. Lost in a kind of afterglow where the shocks still travel through my veins in tiny shudders, a sonic minefield in what is left of the brain, entire galaxies fusing almost imperceptibly into my DNA. I still feel them there. I will never be the same again. Changed in ways we can't yet perceive, besides the double skip of a heart and an insatiable desire to get back into the spaceship.

Picture lovingly borrowed from Lucyparakhina via Fasterlouder. I hope she doesn't mind.

It's Sufjan Stevens Day!

Howdy folks! Here is a post completely unrelated to the Project, but just thought I'd keep you updated on my movements. Had two gigs in two days with Dusker - the first was a band comp in which we won our heat, and if we win the whole thing we get a 5-day recording package in a studio (which would be totally amazing, since we're recording anyway with money we don't have). The second was an Australia Day gig in Wollongong, our first gig down there, and it was pretty fun. It's not every gig you get to go to the beach immediately afterwards. Ben learnt how to bodysurf and I nearly drowned. Good times, good times.


And tonight: Sufjan Stevens at the Opera House! One of the last great gods on this musical throne I revere that I've never seen live. The realisation of this momentus occasion is slowly starting to push through the fatigue. It's been so hot the last week or so that sleep is something I have only a vague recollection of experiencing.

Guess it doesn't matter so much when as of next Tuesday I'm going to be unemployed...

Trublood (You Need It More Than I Do)

I have just done a chart of my songwriting progress, and it's a bit sketchy. I've managed to write eight songs in the past six months (well, calling "Sausages" a song is a bit rich) but as impressive as that may sound, I am still four songs short. I will catch up, eventually. There are many factors and I am slowly trying to address them.

Here is song Number 8, or rather, song Number 4 in the "Songs About Challenges" category: Trublood (You Need It More Than I Do). Can you guess which challenge it is about? Because I'm all about subtley, you know. I hope HBO don't sue my ass for pulling these dodgy samples off youtube.

Trublood (You Need It More Than I Do) by duskerdee

[I know y'all are vampires and all, but you don't have to be such bitches about it]

I've got 8 litres of the good stuff
And you can share it 'coz I've got enough
How 'bout I fill a coupla bags for you?
We're hoping it'll make you feel brand new

You need it more than I do
You need it more than I do
You need it more than I do
You need it more than I do

I got a bad ass bruise from when I gave
My arm was black and blue for several days
But that won't stop me doing it again
Because I got a Mars Bar at the end

You need it more than I do
You need it more than I do
You need it more than I do
You need it more than I do

[One caveat, gentlemen. If you drain her completely, that's the last faerie blood you'll ever drink.
Mmm, good point.]

Halfway Mark

Wow, it's amazing what you can achieve in six lousy months, eh? And also, how many times you can fail at something, how many epiphanies you can have, how many internal arguments you can have with yourself, how many experiences you can fit in, and how many times you can manage to ruin dinner.

I will be more comprehensive in a separate post, but I have a lot to do today and I must run with it while I'm actually motivated. So much to do, so little time!

In the meantime, I'm still learning to use my iPhone and am hoping that this will help me document the upcoming 6 months a little better.

Woah, Bruno!

Third time lucky…

This is Bruno. He’s 25 years old, an Aquarian and loves reading crime novels by the fireside, almost as much as he loves carrots.

He is also the hugest horse I have ever seen in my life. I practically needed an oxygen tank up there. Despite his stature, he was very patient with me and didn’t take too much advantage of my reluctance to kick him. Ben had a lovely young lad named Benny who liked digging in the dirt. Together we were determined to be wrangling cattle and thundering across desert plains hollering “yee-haw!” in under an hour. No sweat.

Walking was probably a good place to start though, so first we did some circuits of the arena, getting a feel for the way the horses moved and attempting to steer them. The sensation was oddly familiar and yet completely foreign – as if I felt like I knew exactly what to do, but putting it into practice proved the opposite. I was continually reprimanded for looking down at the horse instead of straight ahead, and not keeping my heels down, which it felt so unnatural to do. And yet I kept thinking ‘I’m totally down with this. I just need to yell ‘yaa!’ and gallop off into the sunset’. Sometimes I think my brain doesn’t really consult with itself.

We took turns at trotting. Of course by ‘trotting’, I mean something more like ‘gracelessly bouncing’. Chanting “up down up down” was apparently the key, but chanting quickly became less of a priority when up against clinging on for dear life. Each time, I would be sure to have it under control. Then Bruno would trot, and I’d maybe manage a couple of “up downs”, and then the rhythm wouldn’t match up. That’s when the teeth started rattling and the weight started shifting and an unsuspecting sense of alarm kicked in. So we’d stop, and I’d catch my breath and steady the nerves, and once again, my brain would immediately and conveniently forget that I couldn’t trot. Yeah! Let’s do this! And off we go again, with the same result. I think I’m regressing. Nevertheless – fun! What beautiful creatures horses are.

We did this for a while, then went back to walking and steering, and then the hour was over. Just like that. We walked back to the stables and put Bruno and Benny to bed. It all went by so quickly, by the end of the day it was almost as if we’d never been horse riding at all. Then I woke up this morning, and my thighs reminded me. Hello thighs…

An upper!

There is so much I wanted to say about my tendencies towards personal overestimation, more things going wrong, pewter linings (a phrase borrowed from Bart). But like I said, this is supposed to be a positive endeavour.

So instead, I quit my job.

My iPhone now works (although it is still incompatible with my Mac) and we’re attempting to go horseriding, again, today. This morning, I couldn’t have been less excited about it, but now suddenly the world looks… different. So very very different.

Goodbye, desk! Hello, world!

"Injection of happy" in form of beautiful flowers courtesy of the ever-lovely Kat.

A downer

So, on Friday we didn't go horseriding. Again. This would not have been so remarkable had we not made a booking to do so, obviously, and the promise of it had pulled me through the horror of my working week; a carrot dangled in front of the nose of someone who has a tub of excellent hommus but nothing to eat it with. I had to arrange to leave work early, we had to catch a cab, plan outfits both work- and horse-friendly, and then when we arrive, our booking doesn't exist. I tried not to show how one person's incompetence had completely destroyed me for a tiny all-important moment, feeling stupid for wearing those huge boots all day, hot and bothered. But the horses were going to bed, and nothing could be done except make another booking and psyche myself up for the whole rigamarole again on Tuesday.

We decided not to waste our trek all the way out to Fox Studios and watched a film instead. (I give 'Tangled' 3 and a half stars. It is beautifully moving, old school classic Disney, and I enjoyed being the only adults in the cinema unaccompanied by children).

We went driving today. Until the car decided it didn't feel like it any more. I stayed with the car, who I feel no longer deserves to be known under an affectionate moniker, while Ben dashed for oil. I thought I'd take the opportunity to meditate, but each tweeting bird and sweet rustle of leaves gave way to imagery of myself taking to the windscreen with a baseball bat. I couldn't escape. Eventually the engine restarted, for whatever reason. We went for coffee and I tried to be zen about it all. Ben said I'd been doing a really good job up until the vehicle's revolt.

I couldn't get the fundraiser up. Other bands did. I figured there was no point after that. I'm better off just donating more money and supporting one of those events.

Did I mention I bought an iPhone4? After resisting for so long, I felt I could finally get use out of something like this, have instant access to posting photos, be able to listen to my own music again, be able to receive picture messages without the entire phone crashing and needing to reboot. It's a shame that its 4 days later and the phone doesn't work, and Telstra can't tell me why, and also its not compatable with my shitty old Macbook so I can't get any of my music off it. iPhone sucks so far.

Honestly, universe. What did I do? Is there any particular reason you are having so much fun shitting all over me? I am a good person! A good person trying really hard to do good things. Documentation is a funny process. I spend so much energy trying to generate a positive outlook, see silver linings on dark clouds, concentrate on the things that make me happy. I don't want to fill this blog with all the negativity brewing around me, but sometimes, I run out of positive things to hold onto.

Queensland

Everything that is happening in Queensland right now is so heartbreaking. Some of the footage we’re seeing is sickly fascinating, and the scale of it is almost too large to fathom. And the worst is yet to come. These images and stories are overwhelming to say the least. I keep thinking of our perfect little flat, all the cherished possessions we’ve slowly and painstakingly accumulated, all the love we put into making it our own. And we’re only renting. Imagine if we owned the place, as well as everything in it, and then have to watch tonnes of water sweep through and destroy everything. We see people clambering onto their rooves for safety – my Dad wouldn’t be able to do that, if it were my hometown going under. So many elderly and young children trying to find their way out of this. So many families. So many helpless animals. What happened to all the people in hospitals? I don’t even know. Businesses, livelihoods, properties… I just can’t believe it’s happening. It's 75% of the state under water. That's water covering an area larger than France and Germany combined.

Last time I thought we needed to hold a fundraiser, I got caught up in making it too… big. A tragedy needs all the support it can get. I realise now that the degree to which I was trying to pull it off was never going to work, and as a result, there was no fundraiser at all and nothing to show for it. We’re never going to get a big venue on our side to host it without costs. We’re never going to get a big-name act to donate their time headlining for a bunch of smaller indies without a promoter. I know. I tried. So, in another one of those important side lessons we unintentionally learn, what’s really important is working with what you’ve got. Every little bit helps.

It may not end up being a ball, and it probably won’t host 500 people, but damn it, we’re going to raise some money. I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, please show your generosity here: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

Learning about learning

I admit I haven’t driven in Crunk even once since we got back to the city, but I was making some nice progress for a while there. I’m starting to get the hang of the 3-point turn. Becoming more familiar with reverse. Actually using the handbrake. If only all the driving test involved was getting from Mum and Dad’s place to the swimming pool and back, I’d ace the thing. And with car ownership comes other random tidbits of basic knowledge that escapes the licence-less, like knowing how to fill up with petrol. I’d never used a petrol pump until a couple of months ago. Wild, eh?

My nerves in the kitchen are getting their exercise too – the further I go along with this, the more I think I have a proper phobia. When I think things are going badly, my heart sinks with titanic momentum. If the instructions don't make sense, I break into a dizzy, anxious sweat . It’s not just nerves about getting a meal right. I have some serious issues here. I thought that if I kept experimenting, kept trying, this would improve – and in a way, it has. I’m at ease with the meals I’ve practised a lot. I’m very good at chopping. Similarly with my scrapbooking epiphany, if I can’t see how the whole meal is going to pan out, this becomes a problem. I put my faith in recipe books and halfway through, realise these recipe books were not necessarily made for panicky kitchen-inept types such as myself. I need to be told exactly what to do. Cooking for dummies. I fall into traps where I interpret things wrong, and when I am right, I second guess myself. If somebody else is there, watching, this somehow drains any faith I had in myself at all. All this ‘learning’ makes me feel very childish sometimes, which is sort of the opposite effect of what I was hoping for.

It confuses me that I do not feel this way about baking. Flour, eggs, buttering cake tins… this is a different, friendlier and more familiar world. A lot is to be said for having spent so much of my childhood with a cheeky finger in the mixing bowl. I have a lot more instinct for it, and this more than anything makes the gulf between baking and cooking feel very wide and real. Because I like cooking. I’m just not very good at it. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that if you mess up a cake, you don’t get dessert, and that’s not really a big deal. Even a bad dessert is generally kinda good. But if you mess up dinner, then everyone goes hungry and is grumpy and hates you. That terrifies me.

Anyway, I’m a pro at schnitzel now. Roast vegetables make a good side, or mashed potato, and I can do both of those confidently. I’m getting the swing of chicken saltimbocca (although I can never ever remember what it is called). I can probably put risotto under my belt. I’m on my way to perfecting pasta bakes and sausage cassoulet, but they are a work in progress. Not unlike my maturity, perhaps. Look ma! I can feed myself and my husband! I’m almost a grown up!

My life as a scrapbooker

I'm learning a hard lesson about being a perfectionist. I’m one of those people who likes to have a grand plan, seeing everything stretched far out in front of them. Don’t get me wrong, I also like an element of spontaneity - but only if I’ve scheduled it.

This mindset has tripped me up at times when approaching the All Before Thirty project. Like the scrapbooking, for example. My ideal scenario involves dabbling in art direction – storyboarding, page setting, planning exactly what is going to go where – but when I couldn’t do that, due to not knowing what resources I’d be able to use, I kind of idled on it. There have been small, preparatory steps, at least, but it is strangely reminiscent of my early high school art class. “Don’t just keep drawing over the same lines,” Mrs Hardinge would scold, “Move onto something else. Finish the artwork.” (It was a picture of a leopard in a tree, by the way. Turned out ok I think.)

It's more important just to get things done and keep the ball rolling, even if it is in a less than perfect capacity. Hence I bought a little book and some coloured paper and starting randomly cutting and gluing. There is no grand plan, I don’t know how many pages I’ll need to allocate, and who needs a theme anyway? This is another one of those unexpected lessons I clearly needed to learn. ... It’s not really about scrapbooking at all, is it?

Meditation in more ways than one

In the interest of keeping on top of my blogging, here is one. I sweep the contents of my desk with my eyes, looking for inspiration. They waver on a half-eaten candy cane. Sugar for breakfast? Sure.

Another office refurbishment, another anxious search for a new meditation pod. They have built some curiously titled “shoosh rooms” and while I’m not entirely sure of their true purpose, I am hijacking one every day at 11am and sitting in the dark. Concentration, or lack of it, is a difficult thing to achieve just now. My success sort of works on a swinging scale. More often than not I’m avoiding the audio, such as the binaural recordings, and trying to just take myself out of the space I’m in, mentally. Focussing on the shapes that float in front of my closed eyes, or the steady beeping of a crane. Then from a corner of my brain, a little face pokes into view and goes ‘hey, I wonder how Carla’s baby is going?’ or ‘I should check that lottery ticket, I’m probably sitting on half a million’ or ‘one day Bear Grylls is going to eat something poisonous and die’. And I humour it for a moment, not realising it’s an evil trick on myself. Then I’m like “waaait a minute”, and breathe deeper, and focus on that floaty red circle again. For a few seconds, at least.

I think distraction is the real key. It’s like when I’m doing a hard cycle, or if I’m in the swimming pool – swimming is by no means my forte – keeping my mind pre-occupied leaves my body open to do what it’s supposed to do on its own. So I will think about the lottery, or Bear Grylls, and then I’ll be at the other end of the pool. That doesn’t really work with meditation. In times of extreme internal commotion, I have taken to counting, forwards and backwards, without stopping. It sounds loco, but it means all I have room to think about is the numbers. There is a downside in is that it doesn’t always relax me, even if I am breathing deeply, however I like to think of it as a type of a cerebral spring clean. It’s also why I enjoy logic puzzles so much.

I also did my first pasta bake on Wednesday night, under Ben’s supervision. He was multi-tasking, working on his bike in the kitchen at the same time. There is something reassuring and warm about this domesticity we have created. Sometimes we long for a place we no longer have to pay rent on, large enough for a dog, and three kids, and one of us earns enough that the other can stay home and perpetuate the domestic wonder. But other times we are stoked just looking at our retro coffee table/radiogram that we scored on eBay and the glorious red fruit bowl we’ve been hunting down for 6 months, and eat pasta bake, and listen to episodes of This American Life. It is necessary to meditate on these things, rather than waste energy with the other 7.5 hours of the day. It is a shame to waste anything, really, but particularly energy.

And with that... I'm off to meditate.

A belated summary - End of Month 5

#1 – The Fundraising Ball. I don't want to let this beat me. But I think it is going to take up so much of my brain space to make it work, that I need to either dedicate myself to it or get a lot of other things out of the way first. I'm veering towards the latter.
#2 – The Other Fundraiser. This only partially counts I suppose, but the choir show we did raised money for Cambodian orphans. So although I didn't organise it, I was involved...
#3 – Laughing Strangers. I've not had any dedicated laughs, and this is a problem. Hopefully I will find a new job sooner rather than later and this will help across many levels.
#4 – i. Mediation. Same same.
ii. Song Per Month. I'm starting to lose track of these: August - Mallow. September - Blow On In. October - Tiny Mantis. November - Kitty, I'm A Train Wreck. Ah. So I'm one short for December. My bad. Two this month, then.
iv. 26km Coast Track. Fingers crossed for good weather. Note to self: buy camping gear. Where is an Argos when you need one?
#5 – Songs About Challenges. Similarly: August - This Song. September - Sausages. October - Ballad of a Substandard Cyclist. November... oh dear. I've got 2 in the works which should bring me up to speed. Promise.
#6 – Bathurst. No progress. Cripes, when are school holidays? Maybe Easter would be a good time for this.
#7 – Gospel. Ah, it feels good to have at least put a big fat COMPLETED stamp on something. We're on hiatus until February.
#8 – Children’s Hospital. Still haven’t learnt any kids songs. Ok, wow. I need to get organised on this one.
#9 – Harbour Walks. We've only got as far as Manly to Balmoral so far. Hmm.
#10 – Driving. I am sort of driving. More on this later.
#11 – Tasmania. The best thing about this challenge is I keep forgetting that it is happening. Everything is booked and it is VERY EXCITING.
#12 – Scrapbooking. I've been slowly compiling bits and pieces for this, but I've had trouble trying to find an appropriate scrapbook to stick it all in. I'm determined to find one this month and get the ball rolling instead of just nudging it out of the way with my foot in the hallway.
#13 – Cooking. I'm doing ok with this one, but I need to start working out what my 7 dishes are actually going to be. At the moment I'm doing a lot of experimenting but not a lot of committing to memory.
#14 – TV. Why won't you call me back, television stations? I would make excellent TV fodder! Ben thinks we may have to get around this one on semantics. The cogs are turning.
#15 – Horseriding. I'm hoping to reschedule this soon.
#16 – Sydney to Gong. COMPLETE, although I still have the ridiculous tan lines.
#17 – Reunion Dinner. I emailed Father BC again but no reply. I think if this is to work, we're going to have to do this without him.
#18 – Breakdancing. Now that its a new year, this is back on the agenda.
#19 – The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. COMPLETE. Ben read it too. At first I wanted someone to talk to about it, but then we decided it was a bit too dire and we should leave it at that. I'd like to read it a second time though, as I have a tendancy to swim into literature, immerse myself in it, and then dry myself off and totally forget everything I just read. It's odd.
#20 – Yeats. I need to get some software for my computer. I have big ideas and no patience to put it into practise.
#21 – Youtube. It has taken too long for us to get Ellipsis, the lead 'single' from Dusker's EP, off the ground. We now need to get onto recording new stuff and we have a new lead single. On the offchance any Dusker fans are actually reading here I won't spoil the surprise about which it is. But we'll need to record this new song, and put together a new storyboard for a new video. Ugh.
#22 – Busking. This shouldn't be so hard, but I am fussy and want to play "the right songs" and learn them all without having to look at the words while I'm playing. It is becoming clear why so many buskers play Oasis songs.
#23 – Cliff. I have reservations about this, but I guess I won't really know until I see it on the Coast Walk.
#24 – Protest Song. I need to catch up on songwriting in general.
#25 – See Challenge 4.ii
#26 – See Challenge 4.iii
#27 – Blood. COMPLETE, and it left me with a ruddy great bruise. But I still want to continue doing it.
#28 – Japanese. Did I mention that learning a language is really hard?
#29 – Parents. Progress. More about this later.

Today is the last day of what has been a glorious, wonderful, relaxing and desperately-needed break. I have had to stop myself thinking about what tomorrow will bring, as I find myself having heated conversations in my head, my heart start racing; my frustration growing; my despair surfacing. It's going to be about as much fun as running barefoot across a desert of porcupines, but I am resolute that today should be about smelling the roses and stargazing, eking every last drop of joy from this time as I can.

PS. A welcome is extended to Ariella Rose who arrived at 1am yesterday, right on time. She was not already wearing clothes, as my dream had predicted, which was good news for her mother. Biggest of big loves to Carla and Jez, two of my most favourite people. New little people certainly do put things in perspective.

And so begins 2011

Ahoyhoy! Sorry for the absence but we have been out in the internet-less desert lands of my hometown. The temperature started at 31 degrees on the day we arrived and steadily increased to be 40 degrees on the day we left. Unbelievable. We arrived back in Sydney yesterday - Crunk did the whole thing without a hitch - just in time to drink a lot of cider and ride our bikes down to Ashfield Park for midnight. Happy new year!

Will do a more thorough post after we've been to see The King's Speech, and Harry Potter 7A, and eaten more junk food, and been swimming, and had more wine, and sat around on our arses watching episodes of Giles & Sue Live The Good Life until I'm crying with laughter. Man I love being on holidays.