Feeling festive

I'm feeling very festive as I sit surrounded by all the presents I bought despite being quite poor - some of my friends wonder why I went out and bought so many things for so many people but the truth is I really just love that feeling of finding the right gift for someone, and not worrying about the price. I like being alone, walking around shopping centres close to Christmas, stumbling further and further into a trance, trying to predict what my family and friends would love to unwrap. 

Here are some Christmas songs to get you in the mood. I have at least another hour of sitting up and walking out nervous energy as my body prepares to not stop for the next week or so - I probably won't get a chance to blog for at least another week, if not two, so check back then...I promise I'll come back though! 

Have a wonderful Christmas. Take some time to treasure your precious loved ones and eat lots of food and don't feel guilty about it. Thankyou for all your support this year, dear reader, you are in my heart always. Take care. 

xxxx

On this day

I love riding a bike for the first time in many years, and being a subdued part of a convoy of cycling hooligans, (showing off in the most endearing way), gliding down Brunswick Street at midnight with no hands. I love standing in a static conversation when all of a sudden, the lead singer of one of my favourite bands asks us for a cigarette. I love tearing down the highway with the windows down with my friend and bandmate by my side, singing along to our very own songs as they blast through my speakers. I love cooking gingerbread with my little cousins, sneaking dough into each other's mouths and giggling. 

I love everything, like I loved the stars on the day the world was supposed to end. I love them still - and wonder if we are as beautiful to them, as they are to me. 

This year I have learnt how fragile we are, how very breakable the human mind and body is. I felt everything, as always, every part of the spectrum - I felt it in my bones and in my blood. I learnt that hopelessness is everyone's enemy. But perhaps the most important thing I have learnt is to value that little pulse in not only your own chest, but in all your loved ones' as well. The little rhythm, the only thing keeping them breathing and living and loving in your arms.

Warrior

O h   m y   G o d d d d 

...it's one of those nights where I'm writing love letters and listening to sad songs by Ke$ha lying in bed at 9PM. On a Friday. And I have zero problems with it. 

Today in the studio the word 'sexy' was thrown about in reference to my voice in one of the tracks we were mixing. I've never thought of myself or my voice in that respect and to be honest it was pretty hilarious considering I knew, at the time, that this is exactly how my evening would turn out and that it's probably a -7256 on the sexy scale. Anyway whatever guys I'm going to bed. Here are my new favourite sad Ke$ha songs. 

PS OH WOW I completely forgot to tell you!!! Frida's song 'please don't leave me now' was played on Triple J Unearthed radio today! Can't believe it! So happy! Getting somewhere guys! Oh goodness

www.triplejunearthed.com.au/Frida

Four legs good, two legs bad

I am in the studio with Nebraskatak this week, recording our debut EP. Here are a couple of shots...

I am incredibly busy for the next few weeks, like I've been saying. There is recording, Christmas, then Boxing Day-Christmas, then straight to Falls, to Sydney, to home to consecutive gigs...but I will try to check in with you guys on a semi-regular basis at least! The band also got some WONDERFUL news this week which I will announce when everything is confirmed...I actually cried a little bit when this email came through, like real tears. Oh my. 

I walked into Lewis's house the last night to find him wearing a denim apron (yeah, denim), cooking a glorious dinner of from-scratch pizza and creme brulee, to mark our half a year of being giddily in love with each other. 

During the waiting around of recording I have been reading Animal Farm by George Orwell and really enjoying it...

Around all these lovely activities, I have been missing my Mum, calling her up in breaks at the studio just to say 'Watcha doing?' I have been making cookies for the masses, riling up Soda, laughing at my shuddering car, writing songs, getting goosebumps in my sleep, dreaming about rabbits and bookshops and crying happy tears. I have been craving meat, smelling Christmas, thinking about the future and videoing myself dancing to Taylor Swift, knowing that it'll be funny one day.

Hang on to the wallet

Here is a picture of me, very very tired but also very happy (The Brady Bunch is on in the background). Justin and I had a gig as our cover duo Alexander Supertramp last night and it was really fun because I got to stick things on my face and make a new crown (see above) and pretend I was Mick Jagger. Lewis and I had pasta at midnight and looked at camping supplies for the upcoming Falls Festival which is ACTUALLY going to be so fun and I am going and I hope you are all going too because of the fun. 

The other day I was in a terrible mood then I went to Savers, and the universe must have been trying to cheer me up, because I found this 35mm film SLR camera for $24.99 what a bargain!! It works and everything...then Lewis bought a huge stereo that was made in the sixties and I love having a car because we just put it in the back and drove it home and played with it and it's so great - you can sit up against it, and the sound comes out from all around you, it's very comforting. 

Smile!

No kidding

Here is a picture of me struggling with my tangled-up light-dress after my end of year recital...in much the same way, I am struggling to untangle many aspects of my existence  constantly. 

Tonight I drove to the top of a hill to look at the stars and be grateful for all the wonderful things that make up my tangled mess of a life. Little things, like getting Soda's ball out from under the couch for him, and kissing ice cream out of my man's moustache, and reading a digital ~VERY GOOD~ on the treadmill when I put it on the Fit Test mode thing. Monumental things, like creating work that I am proud to call mine, having a family that loves me and friends who love me and a man who loves me, and having all these people to receive the love I so badly want to give. 

I am mine

Over the past couple of days I momentarily lost the plot - I'm quite sure I've got it back now, and I lose it semi-regularly so no need to fret...it does suck though. I have this terrible sickly feeling that is so overwhelming during these times, and it tells me that I'll never be good enough at music to 'make it', and that I should be much more successful than I am right now at 19 years old (prime of my life!), and that every second spent NOT writing, practising, or running, and every second that IS spent eating, having fun or resting, is a complete and utter waste of time. 

I curled up into a sorry ball on the couch and watched the ARIA Awards on TV the other day and hated myself for being ~fat~ and ~sad~ and ~bad at music~ so I went and wrote a song about being none of those things any more. And I felt about 100000075% better afterwards. 

Funny that. 

++LISTEN++

++LISTEN++

++LISTEN++

Deja vu pour toi

I will be honest, I am feeling pretty uninspired at the moment. I feel as though I'm writing the same things over and over and soon you will become bored and stop reading. As a result I've been wracking my brain to think of something new and exciting to contribute but have been run off my feet with logistical things like rehearsal and work and impractical things like feeling sad for no reason in particular and peak hour traffic on Friday afternoons. So I apologise if anything I have written recently has sparked some deja vu pour toi, please be patient with me. 

Here are some things that you have not seen before, because they come from my diaries (oooo). 

'If I could speak to you today, I would thank you for all the songs I wrote for you. I would point out the sun and remind you how I traced across the rays with my fingers and dangled my heart between them, so you would take it and give me something to feel.

I would thank you for the disaster I was, because I crawled out.' 

'...the mongrel yawns, 

disappears at dawn. 

you sigh, relieved, the creature's gone. 

(he was never there, i could've sworn.)' 

I'll take care of you

I know I promised a post on Wednesday but you know what? I've been extremely busy leading a life filled with things that look like this:

The beach trip was beautiful in that hyperactive teenage way (which just so happens to be my favourite way of doing things). I drove ALL the way there and back with Lew the navigator, and did not crash, or get squished by the trucks along those stupid freeways where everyone seems to regard the speed limit as optional. We lived on cookies, peanut butter, beer and Weetbix with Rice Bubbles (the latter mainly just me) for three days and although I still fulfilled my self imposed running commitments, it felt nice to be surrounded by my friends who treat these things with a 'whatever'-ness that I could learn a great deal from. 

The nights were a glorious blur of endless music, smokey lungs, cheap wine and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. We ate spaghetti with spatulas just for the fun of it and danced and tired ourselves out early, falling into cozy sleep. 

Speaking of cozy sleep I collapsed right onto Lewis's bed as soon as we got home by late afternoon, exhausted from my hesitant driving and the late nights that my pensioner's mindset is just not accustomed to. He went out quietly to get salad-making things (bless him) and left me there in a little ball on the mattress. I'd forgotten just how wonderful it feels to be exhausted, and resting comfortably, in the most comfortable, warm, good-vibey place such as your loved one's bed...the afternoon sun just obliterated the room and the high ceiling and I could hear  little voices playing outside on the street and it was just blissful. 

Here are some musical vibes for the past week:

And a bonus musical vibe, promo for a gig that I am doing with Justin very soon...come and fun...

Thanks for putting up with the unhealthy post gap from this week - I'll try not to neglect blogging from now on! 

Listen here

xx

Infinite

I am sitting in my room, surrounded by the blissful cool change, next to the window thrown wide open and listening to some party my neighbours are throwing. The thing about my street is that because it's in a valley kinda thing, you can literally hear normal conversations that are being held like four doors up. So you can imagine the ruckus parties cause around these parts. 

I just finished reading 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' which I started yesterday because it seems to be all the rage, and I've been looking for another 'Looking for Alaska' which made me feel everything. I just LOVE that book, like urgh, and I didn't love Perks as much. I feel like I didn't actively 'like' it, or maybe I did, I'm not sure, but I do know that I finished it overnight which means that it was interesting enough to keep me reading for straight hours. 

It was actually kind of nice. Because even though it was really angsty and everyone was so mad and everyone was caught between being an adult and being a kid and all up in unrealistic and illegal situations and abortions and suicide and LSD and suspicious dead relatives, they were all hopeful about something. About the future, or their families, or the friends - that everything and everyone would turn out OK, the end. And also the same things kept happening, like the same characters would go to the same places and do the same things, but it wasn't boring because there was always some emotional or cerebral or physical trauma happening and someone was always high or angry or both.