Musicophilia

The Briscoe bandwagon is rolling with gusto, although it is less of a wagon and more like Bart’s lounge room, and less like rolling and more like rocking. Bam! I didn’t even plan that sentence. I just come up with this stuff. Did some awesomely fun gang vocals on Sunday, and whoever wasn’t at the mic was engaged in a game of tag team scrabble. Playing “pixies” over a triple word score for 54 points still wasn’t enough to win it for me, but something about board games makes me gleefully happy. I think it is to do with my sibling-less childhood and the fact I never had anyone to play them with. Insert pity. Yes, I am that pathetic.

Anyway, it is great being in someone else’s band and not having any pressure to really do anything but turn up and play your bit.

I’m reading Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks just now, and it is fascinating. The kind of fascination I experience when I’m trying to eat dinner and watch a David Attenborough documentary at the same time – it just ends up being a fork hovering in the air with my mouth partially opened, eyes glued to the mating dance of the Birds of Paradise. That’s what this book is like. Thinking about the weirdness of the brain makes my brain fry. I mentioned earlier my intrigue at the juxtaposition of a perfect melodic singer having seemingly little sense of natural rhythm. Apparently it is not so uncommon. Another thing that tickled my fancy was the creation of music from silence – to write, I often have to spend a long period of time untouched by sound. It’s as if it gives the music a chance to crawl in. I thought that was pretty weird, since surely sitting at an actual instrument or at least humming a tune would be the most sensible way to birth a song, but it turns out I’m not too much of a freak after all. Which is not to say that I don’t occasionally pick up a guitar and noodle out the start of something. Because I did yesterday. It was very exciting.

There’s a free seminar on climate change supposed to be happening on campus here at lunch time, so I’m going to go sit in on it and take some notes. Of course, that’s providing that any of our students show up to it. Which they probably won’t.

Tomorrow is Blood Bank day. It’s a bit annoying actually because we’re going out to see The Fall tonight and it means I won’t be able to drink anything. All for the greater good. If you’re a B+ in need, then boy do I have a Christmas gift for you.

Ouch.

I reeeeally don’t want to go to choir today. It’s one of those things. Like your kid begs you to let him start taking karate lessons, and then three weeks later he’s complaining that he doesn’t want to go, and you force him to go, and he has a great time because he kicked Freddie in the face.

Anyway, I’ve not been for 2 weeks because I was ill the first time, and the choir leader was ill the second time, so I feel kinda rusty and insecure and apprehensive about it again. I know it’ll be fine once I get there. But you know how it is. It’s a dreary, woeful Tuesday and the rain is just waiting to pounce and cling to the bottom of my scuffed trouser legs. I hit my head on a cupboard today which was a fabulous highlight, and I’m not even going to begin to tell you what is happening within the walls of my workplace, except that it smells like despair and feels like wearing a coat made of syrup (sans pancakes).

I’m taking tomorrow off in an attempt to regain my composure (read: sanity). My plans thus far are to have an exceedingly long bath, write a bunch of cover letters, cook some dinner for my long suffering husband, and play lots and lots of music. I have a busking catalogue to refine, four songs to write, and Briscoe things to find my place among. I have a feeling that one day isn’t going to be enough, but I’ll take what I can get.

Keeping things interesting

Nothing much to report these last two days, except that I tried to get in touch with Father Kevin BC again, had a good chat to Carly-le about the bike ride which left me feeling a little lighter about the situation, and sang nicely at gospel rehearsal. Annoyingly one of our best gigs got cancelled.

A cancelled rehearsal left a beautifully open night, which was then immediately filled by the prospect of dinner with some friends it felt like we hadn’t seen for a decade. Sleep is a nice option too, but who can possibly pass up a chance to say hello to this little face?

Hi Baotze!

I’m going for a spin class with Scobie on Saturday morning, so, I may or may not regret that later. They’ve called it “Cycle class” to make it appear less terrifying but they can’t fool me. If that doesn’t strike me down with a migraine then we have 30th Birthday No. 1 Saturday afternoon, picnic style in the sun, and then later in the evening we move onto 30th Birthday No. 2 which is swanky dinner stylee and I will probably even wear a skirt, amazing. Then on Sunday we’re back at Day Job Studios to play with Bam— I mean, record some exquisite music with Briscoe. You know, just a regular weekend really.

And a gig at the Bald Faced Stag in Leichhardt tonight, for anyone so inclined…

Overwhelmed

I am now officially too busy to do anything, ever. This is multi-tasking at its most ridiculous level. It's Monday morning and I am no longer in denial about my desire – nay, necessity – for energy drinks. I’m wondering exactly at what point I decided my life wasn’t full enough as it was, who had spiked my drink at that time, and how I should punish them. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more acutely aware I am that this was my own preposterous idea.

What Would Danny Wallace Do? Quit his day job? If my day job was writing articles for the paper about how awkward my life is, it probably wouldn’t be this crazy. It would fuel itself. I bought ‘Awkward Situations for Men’ on the weekend as a reward to myself and am hoping it will somehow inspire me… another idea that is slowly dawning on me as not-very-well-thought-out. Also, the 22nd is 4 days away and I still have 2 songs to write. This is a problem because I have choir tomorrow, dinner on Wednesday, and band rehearsal on Thursday, but I’ll figure it out somehow.

I was asked to join Briscoe as a full-time band member, to which I immediately reacted in 2 ways: soul-leaping joy, and brain-constricting tiredness. Dusker have a lot of shows coming up, which means more frequent rehearsals, and doubling that worries me. But, you only get out what you put in, eh? I love that band too much to turn it down. I was thinking about sticking with the gospel choir longer-term but now know that the only sane thing to do would be to drop out once we’ve done a live performance and I can tick the box; free up some time for the next thing. I rode my bike again today but my head and lungs were working against my legs, and it felt like pedalling while being hugged by an octopus. I know I’m in an emotional trough right now and this will pass soon enough, but the fact of the matter is I’m still in a trough, and the pigs are looking in, and it smells a bit like rotting food scraps.

BUT! We booked our flights back to the UK over the weekend (our departure date is July 24th, 2 days after my 30th) AND we bought a car. Damn straight, we are people of action. It’s a 1997 VW Polo and it is Fully Sick, something us middle-class inner-west vegetarians-on-Thursdays bicycle-riding herb-growing white folk are going to have to work on. We’ve already removed the crass medallions from the rear view mirror and the Everlast car seat covers, but it’s the embarrassingly loud modified exhaust muffler that really needs to go. I’ll post a picture of it once I’m a bit more organised.

Our rescheduled horseriding lesson is happening this Saturday, so now we can even drive out to Glenworth Valley instead of catching the stinky old train. Amazing.

We also bought a new Jamie Oliver cookbook, 30 Minute Meals. I really dig the style it has been written (step by step through the whole meal, not just one section of it at a time. So for example it tells you to take care of the potatoes after you’ve done your bit with the meat, and then while the potatoes are doing their thing you go back to turn the meat and then you can start on the salad, or whatever). He’s still Jamie Oliver though so mostly it’s hard for me to get past the fact he’s a bit of a twat, but I have warmed to him somewhat over the years. Still, I resent having to go hunting for fennel seeds. Also, it took me 50 minutes to cook only 2 of the 4 components of his 30 minute meal, but that's probably saying more about me than it is about him. Just as well it tasted good.

Ring a ding ding

It's an overcast, dreary evening, at the end of a week where the weather decided to skip from winter straight to summer, and then suddenly remembered its supposed to do spring first. I spent the morning stretching my vocal chords (and spending some quality time with my new super best friend Bam the staffy) at Day Job Studios with Briscoe for what is going to be one hell of a record. We're about to head over to Matt & Cassie's place to partake in several wee drams of whiskey, but first I thought I best catch up on a few things.

I've taken to riding my bike as my main method of getting to work. Changing my thinking so that 'this is just what I do', rather than 'should I do this today?' seems to be working. There are only 36 days left until the Gong Ride and if I think too hard about that, it makes me quite anxious. So I just get up, get on the bike, get into work, and now it is just a part of my day. I can make it up the 'big hills' now - Terminus Street, Trade Street, and to a lesser extent, Albermarle Street, and while I always have to talk myself back to earth after Terminus, I'm definitely improving on some level.

I've been thinking a lot about the utilisation of a bicycle for making strangers laugh. You can ride straight in and out of the situation for maximum impact, which works if you get the laugh, but more importantly, works if you don't get the laugh and need to escape with embarrassment. Dogs are another good 'in' point. They are such a great catalyst for conversation.

Being a hesitant cyclist, I don't use my bell very often. Generally if I'm on the footpath, I probably shouldn't be, so I'll just trundle on behind pedestrians until I get a chance to move around them. I only use them if I'm on a bike path.

With these things in mind, Thursday's cycle was successful in 2 ways. I was coming home along Baltic Street, and 2 guys were sitting out on their front porch, singing with bar-room enthusiasm. One was vigorously strumming a ukelele and they seemed to come to the end of their piece just as I wheeled past. I rang the bell as my offering to the finale. One of them threw his hands up in the air in triumph and they both whooped and laughed. Thank you, occupants of Baltic Street, for being my second laughing stranger(s).

Coming up the home stretch, my legs fatigued and so I moved onto the footpath. A small curly-haired toddler seemed to think I was the most amazing thing he'd seen in ages. "Mum!" he hollered, "Mum! Bike! Bike! Bike!" As I went past, I rang my bell at him, and his little face lit up. "It's a nice one!" I overheard him exclaim to his mother, before yelling "BYE!" after me. I returned the farewell and rode the final block feeling pretty sunny inside.

The toddler didn't actually laugh so I can't count him, but I still thought it was a nice story.

The following night, my back light fell off and smashed and it took me ages to fumble around in the dark lane looking for where the batteries had rolled to. Then closer to home, I had my first altercation with the part of the chain coming off. For a while I flusterred over it, then I calmed down and realised it was very easy to fix. My hands got greasy. I think that means I'm a proper cyclist now.