Grandma Gilligan

This is Nebraskatak; we've been a band since 2011 and been through name changes and member changes and practically every other change little baby adults go through round these times you know. We're tough as nails. You know I really do think of bands in terms of relationships - you need to be open, trusting, vulnerable, capable of compromise, there will be disagreements and storm-outs and shouting matches but not too much...then there's triumphs, milestones, too much time together, personal jokes, knowing each other just a little too well...

I don't thank the universe enough for the way I have settled into this band. I have truly learnt some invaluable lessons, like when to speak, and when to be silent, how to be tactful, the importance of generosity, quick-thinking and compromise, how to be positive, and, particularly, how to channel frustration into constructive words and a way forward.

Nebraskatak has truly helped me build myself into a little performer. I have a presence on stage now that I would certainly never have been able to figure out on my own, I don't think. It has taught me important things about speaking to an audience, how to catch their eye, how to be engaging...you know, it's all the important stuff! I'm very proud of what we've achieved together and funnily enough you know we've outlived many relationships!

We played at Inca Roads Music Festival this weekend which was really fun. I feel like I do learn a lot about myself in these scenarios though. I am truly not cut out for a party lifestyle - I like to be in bed by some reasonable hour, and I don't much fancy the idea of like ~poppers~ or whatever, and I like to dance on the outskirts where there's less people and less chance of me freakin' out about getting stuck in the middle you know. I feel incredibly lame and boring and I was talking to Lewis about it in the tent and I wish I was more ~outgoing or ~wild but I'm just a v. normal person who likes normal things, not even in a nice cosy romantic way just in like a boring shy nervy way you know. But like these things aren't for everyone I know and I just remember all the fun I had on the weekend even though I was being little Grandma Gilligan as usual - because I did have fun and I really enjoyed the company of the band and our friends and yeah.

Confessions

i sit in subway and think how silly it is of me to order black coffee that burns my tongue when all i really want is a milky cappuccino with two sugars and the little chocolate sprinkles on top like my nana used to get. i wander past the wine shelves in the bottleshop pretending to browse when i know i'm heading straight towards the clean skins ($3.99 ea) and i know i'll put it in a drink bottle in lewis' backpack and refill my cup in the bar when the bouncer isn't looking. i stand in front of the mirror at the pub at 6.30pm drawing eyeliner thicker and thicker to cover the mistakes i make cause my hands are always shaking and i don't know if i'm not eating enough meat or if i'm just nervous. i walk with henry to the donut shop on brunswick st and he orders some custard million calorie concoction and i want to smash my arm right through the burning glass underneath the register and pick up every single donut on display and throw them all as far away from me as possible (i used to be pretty good at first base in softball you know). i want to read the harry potters again because it's so familiar and so warm and so 2004 when i didn't care about anything except harry and horses and delta goodrem. i want to rest my head against a horse's neck and be a little girl and be looked after and be worried about and just be.

because now i'm 20 years old and two decades should've taught me more than it has and i'm happy and i'm sad and i'm hot and cold and sitting alone in my bedroom watching dr. phil on a weekday and i wish it was as simple as it is in his 40 minute sessions with mental cases in front of an audience of housewives because in case you didn't realise life is not like tv or the internet or even books. life is in confessions at 3am when i've finished the wine in my love's backpack and we step out of the cab with our legs unsteady and who's turn is it to pay this time? oh yeah it's mine. life is there when he walks in front of me flicking snails off the path with his feet and it's there when we skulk past his little sisters restless in bunk beds and it's there when all i want to do is sleep and know that his little living body is resting next to me. 

(and in the morning i'll be hungry when i wake up near to lunchtime again and i'll ask for black coffee even though i know what i want)

I'll not ask for wine

Urgh SOS guys I've started listening to songs I used to listen to when I was 15 again

I've been going out a lot, which I like not only because my friends are beautiful creatures but because it means I'm ~doing~ something and I have something to look forward to during the day. It also usually means that I can just eat some cereal for dinner which I love. The other night I went to two parties and I stopped on the way to Lewis' house to get some wine, and I waited in the long line at Aldi with a single bottle of wine on the little conveyer belt thing and I couldn't stop laughing at how hilarious it looked in the middle of everyone else's groceries. I like the little things like that but I also hate how I notice little things too. Sometimes I feel like my life is magnified and zoomed in and things that are menial are meaningful and things that should be a blip on my radar are catastrophic. This is unhealthy in many ways because it means that if I have some chocolate that I just wanted in the moment I will really worry about it later, or if I want to go to gym for a workout or whatever I will run and run and the next day my body is made of lead you know. But also like I would never change the way I see things like this because the small things are mainly what I write about because they're not small to me, they are very important in their way. My songs are little things that I want to put in a frame I think. I just wish I could see them all in a positive light rather than letting stupid things crawl under my skin and live there. 

A short list of things that shit me

Some things that have been shitting me recently!!!

1. People who use mental illnesses as adjectives eg. 'This Melbourne weather is so bipolar.' (real quote from a real person). Get the fuck off my FB feed and go spend some time with a person suffering from bipolar disorder then get back to me. Also in a similar vein people who think it's OK to use 'gay' as a synonym for 'lame' - same deal. If we have the power to change how we use our language then we have the power to use our words for what they are meant to be used for. Language does change over time but do we really want a term used as another word for homosexual also synonymous for stupid? Noooooooo please.

2. Males who think it's OK to make comments like 'Dear weather, get off your fucking period.' Even females who think that's OK (some experience PMS a lot worse than others and by making these jokes women make it OK for men to make them too. Same with slut shaming but that's another STORY). I suffer from hideous PMS, I'm not ashamed to say; black depressed days that come right on time every single month and nothing I've tried so far has lessened the slump. Don't make jokes about it. Just don't.

3. The amount of my Facebook friends who make stupid and/or pointless and/or offensive status updates about the weather. s h u t  t h e  f u c k  u p ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

One day when I want to die

hot reminds me of india reminds me of clove cigarettes and airplanes and the pretend-night and morning that they make for you when you're in the sky i want to go back there where normal life is paused and i can be properly like i always wanted instead of running for the last train and sitting in chains in my home town 

We all know 3am

we file along the footpath in lazy lines, drinking wine out of water bottles. lewis and henry lead the jay-walking way across the road and we obediently file onto the tram. as usual i am laughing too loudly, carrying too much baggage and wearing the wrong goddamn shoes again. we tumble out when the tram pulls up and invade 7/11 and i don't think i stop laughing the whole night, not when i'm dancing, not when i'm waiting at the bar, not when i'm sitting sandwiched between my beautiful friends who have no idea i want to wrap them all up in a big fluffy doona and tuck them into my heart forever. i tried to say it at my recital earlier, i said the work i had done wouldn't have been possible without them but it's more than that; they are in my songs, they are my songs, they live so brightly in that music you know. the way an arm rests heavy-sweet on my shoulders and the stupid conversations that we shout at each other from one side of the road to another and the late night-early morning walks home when the only thing on your mind is a slice of peanut butter toast and curling up quietly together to sleep through half the day - i need to write music for these times, to honour them, to keep them precious, to keep them alive, i need to know them forever.

We shed what was left of our summer skin

I am literally terrified of time off. I hate it, I hate it, I HATE it. I hate the idea of the holidays that are coming up with minimal commitments and lots of free days so much it practically gives me a panic attack just thinking about it. Which I hate because I really really do love summer a lot! Like are you guys aware of this song??? Too much, I practically started crying on the cross trainer yesterday! Listen ~ ~ 

I know I could just plan lots of things and get a ~summer~ job and go vegan or whatever but then I get creeped out by the fact that relaxing is just not an option for me and I'll probably end up dropping dead of a heart attack when I'm like forty or whatever. So I want to like duct tape myself to the couch or something and put on a season of Bob's Burgers and just DELETE every part of my brain that thinks about food and bodies and work and money and the ~future~ and just fucking un-clench for once you know. 

Lewis said the other day that he could see my little brain working overtime and sometimes I forget that my head literally never stops ever. It's constantly refreshing and flipping backwards and forwards and making truly absurd and cruel connections between words that come in and the thoughts provoked by them. I have tried meditation etc to quieten things down and it can work but unfortunately the vicious cycle goes on like my brain won't stop, meditation becomes impossible, brain continues to get louder and louder and meditation is more and more impossible and I feel lazy and stupid after the whole thing!!! 

This is all too much information but I just would like to please click the off switch in my head sometimes and lie on the couch all day and not feel bad about it!

Most of all

i think loss is familiar to everyone. when it appears it doesn't just ~appear~, it rises from a place inside of you where it has been hiding since the start of you. i know this because sometimes loss raises its head - like when you lose concentration when you're driving for one millisecond and it nearly costs you your life - or when someone faints in front of you with their eyes wide open staring not seeing - or when someone isn't answering their phone and you've been calling and calling all afternoon - that's when loss perks its ears and you feel it stretching and preparing to take over your heart and your brain and your lungs and your fingers - and suddenly - you spin the wheel of your car, veering back on track - he blinks a couple of times and says 'what?' - your phone buzzes on your bedside table and you pick it up in a heartbeat - and loss crawls back into you somewhere, biding its time. 

'i remember everything you said/and all of it is turning round my head.'

i like to know that my day has been productive, that i am achieving, that i am good. as i grow older i'm beginning to realise that no matter how many times i am told by other people that i am ok, i will never completely believe it unless it comes from somewhere within myself too. 

Society

I am tired!!! But today was a good day for reasons:

* Me and Lewis handed in our semester two folios on time and then I got a Boost juice even though they're overpriced and the lady gave me a free ~upgrade~ because she made too much BOOST so I was happy!

* We had a good gig last night with Frida. I'm very proud of us and I was fretting about money and stuff and Henry just said 'let the music speak for itself.' And I like that. I just gotta remember that we're only little still and literally last night was like our sixth gig ever as a band and yeah. We're doing well. 

* Speaking of bands I got my FIRST EVER royalty payment today! I'm so proud!!!

* Umm I bought Taku a little heater for his tank and he's rly happy and toasty now

* Summer's coming

* I'm listening to this song:

and I kind of want to cry because it is so beautiful. I love that story Into The Wild even though it makes me very sad and kind of uncomfortable. 

So right now I'm trying to decide how best to present the work I have done over the semester in a pretty and interesting way you know. I have lots of ideas but many of them are impractical and even more of them are dumb. So I just gotta sift through a lot of bad stuff to get to the good stuff right. I just want it to be g o o d  u r g h . . . . .

And I've been up and down but mainly good you know. I'm looking forward to the summer, maybe I'll get a job, maybe I won't...I think I take being young and free for granted a little sometimes. 

I live with you

We got an email today from our head of composition saying that there will be a meeting on Wednesday to discuss ~stress~ within the second years relating to *experiences* earlier this year. I can only imagine this will be a follow up meeting to do with how we have all dealt with Dave's death and ways to deal with stress that might occur. I don't know how to feel about it really.

I've written this before but I do think about Dave quite a lot. Being an active sufferer of the capital-D ~DEPRESSION~ I often wonder where I would be if I did not have the support of my friends and family - if I was slightly more introverted, triggered more easily - if I had a different diagnosis - where would I be? And if things could be different for good or for bad...where would Dave be?

I remember the morning after we found out about Dave we were all called into uni to have a meeting. I had assumed everyone had been told the night before what had happened but there was one person who hadn't - I wasn't the one who told him, but I did watch as he swallowed the awful piece of information and I felt like I was intruding terribly on a very private experience. I found out at a bar, in the smokers area, I remember my hands shaking and Lewis saying "Dave..." like he'd done something stupid like he'd...I don't know, like he'd ridden a bike without a helmet and fallen off or something. In my head, though, in my head...I was kind of calm. We walked outside and sat down opposite a busker who was playing guitar and I couldn't stop thinking about how he'd never even touch a guitar again and how he loved music so much and he is (was) so much better at guitar than this guy and I couldn't help but get my tenses all mixed up - is, was, is, was - when someone is taken from the world so suddenly I guess our brains lag, huh.

He was such a mystery to me. And not in a teen drama, college novel kind of way. He was - is - a terrifying mystery that I'll never solve. We'll never really know why anyone would take his or her own life - it's impossible, impossible to a healthy head, and one can only make poorly informed assumptions at best. It's not "tragically beautiful", it's a terrible, horrifying, confusing, infuriating mess. I know, because I was at Dave's funeral, and I saw his grandmother crying in front of me, even though she was ancient and demented she understood everything that was going on and was wailing for Dave. I saw his girlfriend and I'll never, ever, ever forget that, not in my darkest, most frightening minutes I'll never forget how she has to live now. 

And so it goes on in my head, the cycle of confusion, frustration - and what I feel is magnified by an infinite amount within the people who knew Dave well. I can't imagine what it must be like to live with that constant stream of questions in your head, with no answers possible. I feel for Dave's friends, with all of my heart. It is not an easy life. I'm little, but I know that much. I always try to put a positive spin on things on my blog because I think in most cases there is positivity to be found. But here there is none. And I've tried, I've really, really tried, to find some, but I just can't, and it kills me, and I don't know what to do. 

I guess life is cruel for no reason, just as it is kind for no reason.

I like to write about these things because it helps. I don't know why, it just does - like breathing out a big breath feels really nice you know. I feel like once writing or making music or art or whatever stops being a cathartic process, it's time to re-evaluate things.

One for the blogs

i take a bow and bound off-stage, immediately awkward and shy and weird again. i make a beeline through the crowd for my dad who takes me under his arm and rubs my back. an old man comes up to me and thanks me for singing. i'm always thanking people for listening so that's really strange but also nice you know. a little while later i try to make my way outside, bursting through the door and breathing in the cold air like coming up from underwater. a group of drunk grown-ups flock to me and my feather eyelashes and begin slurring, gushing; i'm overwhelmed and anxious and they're standing too close and saying too much. my boys appear on either side of me, big tall chesty walls with huge hearts and they take away the pressure of 3 against 1 and i start to hear what these people are saying to me. "your singing...i mean i don't ever say this but and like...don't be offended...you're 20? 20 years old? you're old...you're an old soul...it's like you're 70 in a 20 year old's body..." i once read somewhere that the only people in the world who ever tell the truth are children and drunk people, and this is yet another apt observation made by someone who's just had a few too many white wines. i hold my hand to my heart once again and thank them, finally able to escape from their hopelessly accurate drunkeness. 

backstage. the two singers from the bombay royale stumble down the stairs into the dressing room. henry and lewis and i are actively replacing beers stolen by the second band on the bill back into our rider bucket. i fill a little latte glass with wine and watch the beautiful girl sit in front of the mirror, brushing her hair in a rush and preening her perfect face. we cultivate such a fragile image onstage, and onstage is the only place it can survive. i am nothing when i'm in the world. 

You're not sorry

~ ~ ~ https://soundcloud.com/eilishgilligan/rookie-coffee ~ ~ ~

^ The final version of that song ya know the one ^

Last night Frida played at the Village at Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy. I had a really fun time ya know, like me and Lewis got there pretty early and we went ~backstage~ and got a free dinner of veg dahl and you had to wash the dishes yourself and everything and there was a little puppy and it was sooo cute and we sat in camping chairs next to each other just being quiet. It's nice when you feel so comfortable with someone that you can just do the things that you normally do but next to each other...or something. I like closeness. Anyway we played and I feel pretty OK about it; recently after gigs I've just been feeling so down about the whole thing and nitpicking everything I did wrong and being extremely hard on myself, to the point where it seems like I'll just never improve or succeed or anything like that. I think it's super important to be critical of yourself and see areas where you can improve but you know recently I've been thinking that it's equally as important to try and see yourself for what you really are, or even how others see you. Like last night I feel like there were of course specific points during the performance that next time I would do differently, or better, whatever, but I also feel like if someone was just walking past they would probably stop and watch because we look interesting and we sound, well, we sound good. I'm not afraid to say that anymore. 

I love performing which is lucky. I'm such a dork in real life; I'm not a very good driver and I like to make lots of noise by blending up peanuts to make peanut butter and I take way too long in the supermarket because I'm looking at things but when I'm on stage, it's all business. No fucking around. I'm this strange creature that's not really me, but who I wish I was - honest, strong, assertive, furious; last night I caught myself actually rolling my eyes during a song remembering so, so clearly what it was written about and how I felt in my bones that night, it was all just there. I'm someone who's not frightened of defeat, or sadness, or happiness or anything and it's so liberating and I wish everybody in the world could experience that feeling of freedom - when you roll your eyes in front of an audience thinking about the time you were crying on the way home from softball practice in year 12 because someone kissed someone who wasn't you and how stupid that really and truly is.  

I'm not really saying what I mean to say properly but since when do I ever anyway...