Midnight daydreams

Some vibes for you guys...

It was HOT yesterday, like 38 degrees kinda hot! I went to my friend's pool after band and it was bliss - how wonderful it is that we can just swim in our friends' pools in the middle of the day, and not have to worry about work, or school, or anything like that...divine. It's kind of like being retired, but 60 years early. 

For now, anyway. I have a very busy few weeks coming up which is pretty hilarious considering how money poor I am. In December Nebraskatak is recording our first EP (exciting!), Alexander Supertramp (my and my friend Justin's acoustic covers/background dinner music money making extravaganza) has a gig at Red Bennies on the 13th, AND I am writing and recording demos for Frida from now until March, when I will hopefully have enough material for an EP and for gigging. Not to mention that thing called Christmas, during which we will give and receive presents and be visited by my charming Aunty Em (more on her later, I think I've talked about her before actually), New Years (which I will be spending at Falls Festival) and an impromptu beach trip next Monday; all of these activities are slotted in neatly beside essentials such as eating, sleeping, teaching, exercising and watching The Bachelor with Lewis at 11.30am on Friday mornings. 

The fairest of them all

Last night a friend of mine mentioned this thought that she had had: that a good friend of hers was not actually a real person, that she was just this figment of her imagination, and everyone in her life was just humouring her whenever she talked about this friend, going along with the whole thing so the illusion is sustained. 

It's kind of frightening to think about things like that. Especially in situations where you're quite sure you don't deserve something or someone you have managed to snare. Is there really a living body next to me in my car, is there really a jeaned-leg beneath my hand, is there really a voice in the atmosphere and not only in my head?

Even when you're quite sure a person is real, even when you can feel them solidly beneath your hands and believe that they belong to the world and not just to your imagination, the frightening and sad fact remains that the only thing that's keeping them in the atmosphere is the quiet, pounding pulse of their human heart. Something so fragile and so temporary and so breakable, that is the only thing that keeps a person alive on the planet and not only in heads.

No future/no past

A particularly angelic photo that Lewis took the other day, when we were drinking in the gardens. 

A couple of nights ago at a house party, two girls that I am pretty much friendly acquaintances with came up to me and told me that they read this blog on a regular basis, and have it bookmarked on their computers. Whenever something like this happens I just feel so happy, and so fulfilled, and it means so much to me, that anyone would ever be interested in reading what I write. One of these girls said to me: 'I feel as if I know you!' and the truth is, she does. 

I write honestly here because I always think that no one except me reads what I publish. I think that silly delusion is a good thing, because it makes me completely comfortable with being totally honest with you, dear reader, as you deserve nothing less. Life is a shared experience, and we all go through things that someone else has been through before. If you find solace in my strangeness, insanity, nuances and love of love, then that's all I can ask for. 

In other news I've been thinking about dreams a lot lately. Lewis and I tell each other our dreams in that funny morning headspace, side by side in bed, and this morning I was recalling this dream where I had a little kitten under my care. It was adorable but I looked it up and apparently, to dream about kittens means your subconscious is nervous about a transition into independence. Who'dve thought it...

A year or so ago I wrote about the most frightening dream I've ever had. I still don't really know what it means, but here it is, if you care to interpret...

"So the world in my head ended last night. I watched as little specks of humanity crossed the darkened sky, throwing flaming balls of light and gas in an attempt to relight the sun, which had burnt out. I stood on the same hill that, in reality, my dog and I walked up yesterday in the moody but docile wintery weather. In typical disaster conditions people were standing with me, huddled in families, praying, screaming, shouting with false hope when the sun burnt bright for a second, then wailing as it faded into nothing as it became apparent that it really had died, and was not to be relit.

I knew that it was our fault that this had happened, that the sun had died and we were doomed. You know when you just KNOW things in dreams, and accept them - it was like that. I don't know how we did it, however I feel that it had something to do with something like climate change, definitely human-related.

Then I was driving with my parents in pitch black darkness, watching from the window of my car the same saga with the sun being relit, then burning out immediately, then being relit again. Knowing this was our last, final resort failing before my eyes."

Red

Seriously guys, Taylor Swift. She's so good. I just downloaded a whole bunch of new music yesterday and her new album Red was in there. I mean, there are some questionable moments but I just like her. I've written about this before but I like her more than ever, because that silly cursive writing has gone from her album covers, and been replaced by some cool block lettering, and her songs are about a gajillion times better: 

She sends a wholesome message. Listening to her on the train yesterday was really relaxing because I know how many teenage souls would be compiling playlists full of Red to reminisce their lovers, and that makes me happy, just for all the crazy love that young people share. I don't know quite how to describe why I like Taylor Swift so much, but I think it has something to do with my own appreciation of music that is relatable to a wide audience - I always try to make my songs accessible to people, full of things that happened to me that happened to everyone else too. I think Taylor Swift is a mastermind at this, if only for the young girls that make up the majority of her audience. 

'I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to.'

Come on guys. That is a good lyric. 

So we beat on

Here are a couple of terrible quality videos from my recital - I will take some proper photos of the outfit I was talking about in the last post...if you can see, I'm wearing a dress with blue fairy lights all over it. It was pretty cool but possibly hazardous so I only wore it for one song. There was also a projector which was directed onto me so that the colours of the video were on me, if that makes sense. That's what the weird light is. Here is my program (sorry it's so hard to read, I kind of just wanted to show you the border because it is so pretty): 

I have finished a year of my degree at the Victorian College of the Arts. It feels weird, and like I'm not totally finished because I'm not staring into months of oblivion until March because I have so much to do music-wise before the year is over. 

I'm so happy. I really am. And it has taken me so long to be able to say that without some little niggle of doubt and some nerves sitting and waiting at the pit of my stomach. I love stronger and better than I ever have before because it's not the total insanity of my teenage heart getting ahead of my brain; I am making better music, I am a better friend and daughter, student and teacher, because I know more than I did. I did not enjoy every part of the learning process but I am so proud that I have made it this far, and can see just far enough into the future to be excited about it. 

This year has been exhausting. Sometimes it has been that awful kind of exhausting; where you're riding on a bus home at 3am with 50 other people, standing next to a pile of vomit while waves of anger and hopelessness wash over you in equal parts as the bus jerks you from side to side, into the body of someone you thought you knew. But it has also been that beautiful kind of exhausting, where you're lying in a paddock at 6.30am watching the sun rise with your closest friends, after watching it set the night before with the very same people. It's been emotionally exhausting, frightening phonecalls and late night television shows - but at the same time, being so in love with another person that your body and your brain are overwhelmed and exhausted, and the only thing you can do is just look at this person in astonishment at the incredible, impossible luck that has allowed your paths to meet, is one of the most wonderful and beautiful things in the world. 

I just finished reading The Great Gatsby today and absolutely adored every word. The last sentence is so divine, and so perfect, I want you to read it right now: 

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. 

I love stronger for what I have known in the past. The struggle continues for everyone but we beat on...we just don't have a choice. 

PS. THANKS FOR THE PICS EMILY XXX

Welcome back, space girl

Yesterday was a pretty funny day. After drinking hideously tepid wine from a plastic cup as the sun set over the Botanic Gardens, Lewis and I went home to his home-made 5.1 surround sound set up. I sat and mixed my work for the semester and he brought me tea and then we watched The Mighty Boosh and went to bed, relishing in the fact that yesterday it had been five whole months since that one quiet 3am that marked the beginning of a very lovely and very beautiful relationship. 

Here are some screenshots from my video for my recital tomorrow night. If I can be bothered I will attach the program too for you to have a look at. If you are thinking about coming to my recital by the way I made a Facebook event with all the details. I'll get someone to take some photos tomorrow night too, I have an outfit that I'm just DYING to show you guys...

Insane for the destination

11:11

 MAKE A WISH 

 ~+~+~_-___--_--

ONE DAY I'M GOING TO ASK A SCIENTIST TO HELP ME HOLD ALL OF YOUR ATOMS 

A thing of beauty

Beauty can be found anywhere, if you look hard enough. It may well be on the front cover of a magazine, but it is also in an endless horizon, a wave just before it breaks, a quiet whisper between lovers. Humans can recognise beauty but we don't understand it; which is why we are constantly trying to capture or manufacture beautiful things, trying to replicate or contain it so we can admire it as we please. A thing of beauty truly is a joy forever, even behind bars; we capture wild animals and put them in cages, we write down our emotions and put them into the confines of a song. While it is cruel and unkind to contain beautiful, free spirited things, I think it is in our nature to always want more than we should have. While it is so sad to see animals listless in zoos and amusement parks, and while it is tragic to over-analyse a beautiful moment between you and a loved one just so you can create a piece of concise work from the experience, there is no denying the fact that no matter what unnatural things we do to beauty, it never disappears. 

It just becomes sad. 

Oh boy

I have work to do! But instead I'm sitting here with a tummy full of pasta and a bed full of sheet music and a computer full of Facebook. I also have an infected ear as you can see...

...which is lame and painful and so gross because it weeps pus almost constantly. Seriously ew.  So motivation for work is kind of low but I REALLY should get my act together as I have my end of year recital in a week's time from tomorrow, and I'm really quite unsure of what I'm actually going to be doing. 

...I left this post for about an hour just then because I got the guilts about just sitting around watching my ear drip pus onto my top so I've done some work now. Which leads me into a little schpeel...

Me 50% of the time: My body is fab peanut butter is fab bread is fab I went for a run today I am allowed to eat whatever I can fit in my body right now bye
Me 50% of the time: Oh no I've put on so much weight oh God OK starting now I'm a vegan right now cutting out all toxins no sugar no coffee just gym one million hours per day bye

I hate this part of my head. I'm so over see-sawing between contentment, even pride, and downright hatred, for this wonderful body I've been loaned for who knows how long. I'm so over denying myself unhealthy food to the point where I go crazy with craving it and end up eating much more of it than I would have if I'd just HAD it in the first place!

You know, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my entire life happened around this time last year. I was at a party, and the music was wonderful and we'd just sung 'happy birthday' and naturally I declined a slice of some seriously delectable-looking cake. I sat on the edge of the table resting from dancing during I song I didn't know, and looking up I saw, spinning in joyous circles on the dancefloor, an absolutely majestic, glorious creature. This girl (who I didn't know at the time, but we move sweetly in the same social circle now) was dancing so energetically, so vibrantly, with her plastic plated-birthday cake in one hand and a spoon in the other. As she moved so fast and so divine, she somehow managed to consume a huge slice of cake too. And honestly, it was the most beautiful, perfect moment, to see this beautiful creature dance and eat so sweetly and so earnestly.

Whenever I feel annoyed at myself for not having a flat stomach or twig legs I try to think about that; that ethereal memory that I have of this girl who is just so beautiful, enjoying a piece of food that was created to be enjoyed, not regretted. I know just how ridiculous my brain is, which is helpful, because it's getting easier and easier to tell it to shut up when it starts acting out. 

I promise this is the silliest thing that gets me down. And it's so frustrating because I know how narcissistic this whole thing is and that makes me even more annoyed at myself because on top of being "fat" I'm also selfish and boring. OOOOOOO great goodness me, heave a mighty sigh...and as my Mum would say, "Oh boy...!"

The lives we've touched

I was sitting in Lewis' computer screen-lit room last night, doing that great thing: looking over old diaries. I needed to write some lyrics for a new Nebraskatak song and was exploring emotions such as 'anger' and 'sad' before I realised there are much nicer things to write about. While I did end up writing quite a happy collection of words for this song, I would like to reiterate how great it is to have diaries to read over, when in need of inspiration. You can recall, with frightening ferocity, emotions you'd forgotten you'd succumbed to weeks, months, years ago. It's quite a strange experience really!

This song is about loving someone with such madness that you know, that no matter what happens between now and forever, you would still be missing that enormous piece of you that you gave to them.

my chest trembles, i can't help it
i curl into the cave of your arms
we're a tangle, tangle

you say scary, i say perfect
you're sighing your velvet in my ears
and i can feel it, feel it

every time i close my eyes you are there waiting
every time we say good bye i know we're just saying it
every time i close my eyes you are there waiting
every time we say goodbye i know we're just saying it

i tear like a petal, colour in the way down
side by side in the coffin in my bed
my heart pounds in spite of it

my back is to you, as you whisper
the secrets that live with you and me
and die with us too

To build a home

I think I quite like Gonzalo Bénard's latest series B Shot by a Stranger because I'm interested in the difference between being alone and being lonely. I spend the majority of my time alone, even in my own house. I think that a lot of people my age do too but do not realise because whenever we are physically alone, we are always hyper-connected to everyone in the world through the internet and phones and all that stuff. If you are talking to four different people at once through the internet, but sitting by yourself in your room in silence, are you really alone?

Also I didn't realise how rich an image can be, even in black and white. My tendency to soak everything I create in masses of colour, be it art or music, usually results in my being pretty bored with black and white photography in general. But these images are so full to bursting of feeling, trepidation, confusion and strange energy. I feel that colour would not do them justice somehow. 

Oh so beautiful! 

Good morning, Morgantown

Well, it can be safely said that my life has totally and completely changed now that I can legally drive a car on my own. 

This actually scared the bejesus outta me don't ya know! I was driving home from dropping my sister off and I just got so frightened by how very old I now feel, and how very ADULT, that I suddenly got totally removed from the present and became a little girl again. A little girl who sure as hell should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car. I felt very, very small, particularly in comparison to my car which seems much too big, too dangerous, too loud and too smelly to be something that I can call mine. 

Last night I left to go to a party and my whole family stood out on the driveway and watched me drive away. I am the first daughter of three to get her license and I think my parents are having an even stranger time adjusting than I am. My Mum tried to call me to see if I was at my destination yet knowing full well that I could not answer while driving. My Dad stood at the top of our driveway, and I let him guide me as I manoeuvred myself out (even though I really can do it myself). He stood there watching me until I drove away. It was a bittersweet coming-of-age memory moment that I will file away in my heart forever, kinda like something outta Crossroads...

I am getting used to it though. Today I certainly felt more free than freaked out. And I have discovered the unadulterated joy of driving with all the windows down and a loved one right there next to you. Last night I even listened to Joni Mitchell as I drove myself around, reliving my childhood with the very same songs I used to listen to in the back seat of our Volvo stationwagon from the ages of 1-8. As she always does Joni sung so sweetly to me, but only me this time - and as I tried to keep my head driving in the complete wrong direction I sung with her, the words that I learnt so many years ago now. 

I'm finally growing up. 

Driving around on a plastic dream

I got my driver's license today which is pretty hilarious! Oh man oh man. I drove my sister to the shops and she was like 'are you sure you know how to drive?' and I was just like 'uh...'

But seriously though how exciting. I'm struggling with the concept of WHENEVER and WHEREVER right now so I'm just sitting at home for an hour or so before I get back behind the wheel of my lovely little car...this is so weird...