Sky man

Hey! It's been a MONTH since I last posted which is truly awful and I'm sorry. I don't even have any good excuses...to be honest I'm using Tumblr a lot more these days because it's so immediate - it's great for mood/inspiration boarding, as I'm sure you already know, and now I've found my friends' blogs and we follow each other so I'm not so much of a lone 21 year old Tumblr user u know. It's soosoo fun. I will definitely maintain this blog though because I've had it since I was 17 and it would be a shame to stop now! 

I have officially graduated from the VCA with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and I'm pretty proud of myself. It's not like the last three years have been a walk in the park, but you know I just feel very good within myself - much better than I ever did when I was 18 - and I know it's because of my own hard work, plus, of course, my large and loud support system of family, friends and teachers. I've become a real lady, capable of creating not just with passion and impulsiveness but with thoughtfulness and complexity, of working hard, of bouncing back, of bucking up and doing what must be done and doing it well. The actual gradation ceremony was blah, a little too close to the millions of stiff assemblies I attended at my old high school for comfort, but me and my parents and Lewis went to dinner afterwards and had a gelato too. Me and Lewis turned wide-eyed at the fact that we didn't even know each other at the beginning of this course, which goes to show how three years can be both a very short time, and an eternity. 

Speaking of Lew, he has moved out! (Further proof that we are growing up into actual adults.) A couple of nights ago we sat on his bed, around 2.30am, and listened to the baby room, listened to Hudson and Max trading verses back and forth from the lounge and wondered aloud about when reality will ever hit - or if it ever will. We rode home earlier that night in a wild convoy, which is one of my favourite things to do ever, because for some reason I am not a slow cyclist at night, but speedier, slicker, and we ride together like something from a teen movie. If you've never ridden home at 1am after a couple of wines, speeding downhill with cold dark air punching you in the face, it's an experience I highly recommend. 

I have lots of things planned for 2015, and a lot of it has to do with bettering myself you know. Like I said I've come a long way but me and my crazy temper still have a long way to go. But I feel like, right now, I couldn't be better equipped. 

Big big plans

Sitting in my bed exhausted under covers making plans making big big plans my heart sinks to dial numbers but it rises again straight up my throat with mentions of the future of big big plans of new things exciting things unspeakable things in hushed voices in restrained anticipation i plan to sleep early but i work into the night observing learning dreaming wide awake eventually to dream asleep and in the morning i go to work and work hard but my head my heart is back home under my covers silent shaking anticipation making big big plans

Come anytime

photo by peter cahill

I'm back from the ridiculous adventure that was New York, and the feeling of being splinched is slowly dissipating. So much stuff has happened/is happening and I can't even stand it:

1. The trip was amazing, and liberating, and wild, and fun and weird and I never wanted it to end. I felt so free, and I found my way and caught the subway by myself and stuff even though it's really dumb I felt really grown up and independent...I couldn't have asked for a better initiation into the USA than that trip. When I'm old and boring I'll think about it and be happy. A few polaroid shots I took...

2. When I was at Yale, I got a call from the lovely Emily telling me that I have been selected as a 'wildcard' (lol) finalist for Bank of Melbourne's Melbourne Music Bank (mouthful!) competition. It sounds dumb but I am just really proud to be selected, because I worked really hard on that song and went through many ~emotions trying to get it halfway decent ya know. Anyways the competition is based on the public's votes and they just closed like this morning so I'll let you know if I make it any further. 

hey how's it going #omg #wildgilli

3. On a sadder note I guess, I should probably ~announce the end of Nebraskatak. It's been crazy fun and I have learnt so, so much about everything during our time together, but it is time to move on to different things. It's definitely a sad time, because we achieved so much, made so many friendships and laughed and cried our way through high school and university together. But you know, those friendships are entities within themselves, and in a way I believe that the experiences we shared also created something that is apart from the band itself - that is, we won't lose everything we gained from Nebraskatak just because we won't play together any more. I feel positive about our individual futures, and I feel empowered by the experience and support that Nebraskatak facilitated. Also, I'm really just a proud mama - we wrote some damn good songs, and Nebraskatak taught me how to be on stage without feeling weird, how to work with others and compromise and discuss, how to keep my (generally unfortunately short) temper in check and how to laugh at, appreciate and share the things that have hurt (#breakupsongz). And to my lil Nebraskatak brothers and sister - love u guys 4ever.

Our last gig is at the Evelyn Hotel on the 30th of October. Come be happy and dance and laugh and cry and give us hugs, it's gonna be so good. 

Chamber of reflection

This time next week, I will be getting off a plane in Los Angeles, rubbing my lil eyes and thanking my lucky stars for the series of fortunate circumstances that is my life.

"Je suis perdu...mais je vais me retrouver."

In a session with my psychologist the other day ***(I am fine this is v normal I feel good thanks:))*** I was saying how I have been feeling more comfortable in my own skin recently. I ran 10km in an hour this week, and I know that's not very fast or anything but I feel very proud of myself and proud of the fact that I worked *hard* for that distance and that time. For once, I was not running away from ~fat but running towards !healthy! and !achievement! and it felt really, really good. 

I struggle a lot with the difference between feeling and fact. I often catch myself thinking, or even worse, saying, 'I feel fat' or 'I feel like a failure' or something to that effect. It is very hard, when a feeling very strong, to differentiate between what is real and true, and what is just felt. It's hard to explain but I feel like I hardly need to, because all of us, at least once, have believed something we have only ever felt. 

Anyway, I have been feeling (ha) pretty good. I think I will have to get used to the feeling of being out of control of my life, because no matter how hard I work nothing ever seems to go exactly as I expect that it will. I suppose that's the fun of it. 

Dream of sheep

I'm leaving for America in a couple of weeks, which was something I pretty much forgot about in the busy fury of semester and gigs and stuff, and now it's like hit me that we're going and we're gonna do all this cool stuff and I'm so excited I can't like sit down. 

My life is changing in a strange way, but I think in the end the change is good. We're hurtling towards the end of semester, but for the first time ever I feel like I'm in control. I am a musician and I am an artist and I have chosen this life because I love it. I don't need a ~back-up plan~ because I will work until I am happy/I will be happy working, y'know. I was terrified of next year, without the cradle of this degree, but having thought logically about the whole thing I feel like I'm prepared to jump...

I have been going out a lot, which is good, because all my songs live there. I love the way Darvid raises his eyebrows at Lewis, tilting the neck of his guitar towards us during the set, trying to teach Lewis his guitar lines mid-gig. I love the way the bartender leans over our group to wordlessly hand me a candy necklace like something out of a dream. I love the way Kitty the gypsy glides into the room totally unaware of her ethereal presence and I love watching Justin's dread-head silhouette nodding along as I listen from the bar. I just overflow!

I have been listening to Kate Bush religiously recently, and her voice like a prayer floats around my crappy headphones while I ride the train. I can't stop listening to Hounds of Love - such vision! Such innovation! Srsly! I've linked the full album below, do yourself a favour and listen from start to finish...and thank me when you dream of sheep. 

Shifting

Some magical, time-travelling, fantasy photos from my friend Jaccob. This was first year, first semester, and our first major assessment-y thing...makes me feel so sad about finishing my degree at the end of this year, because despite my plans to (hopefully) complete my honours at VCA in 2015, it won't be the same without all these souls around. Things and times and worlds are changing again - seems like I only just get settled someplace and before I know it I'm shifted again. I think that's a healthy way to be though, to never be settled, to always be coming and going. 

Logic/Passion

sitting with one leg over the other, sunk in a sunken sofa with my eyes looking anywhere, i say:

"i feel very old."

and i do. last night i caught my reflection in the train carriage window, and the fluorescent light cast downwards from the ceiling built crevices in my face that weren't there before. as the train gained momentum, the lights from the city passed through my mirror-body and i felt like an old ghost. 

there are two fists around my lungs that pull and squeeze every time i think about the future. the trouble with wanting everything is obvious, but i still want it, and i still demand it from myself. i am not interested in forgoing the trait of perfectionism; i would sooner abandon necessities such as sleep or nourishment, you know. i do not think this is noble or even clever but like i said on that old sofa the other day - "i have lived like this for so long i don't know how to change." 

(and silently, logic wars with passion, my head against my heart)

Shantaram

i live inside a dream
somewhere between new york city
and fitzroy at 3am.

last night i was lying in bed listening to maybe tomorrow by the jackson five muffled through the door and under people trying to guess their celebrity heads / my bottle of wine and the bell jar abandoned on the coffee table

"i took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: i am, i am, i am."

Expecting

i gotta be honest, i cannot stand when people say 'expect nothing, and you will always be pleasantly surprised'. please. i expect everything, including failure. expect everything, and you will always be pleasantly expectant. 

do not talk to me when i am on the train by myself. i am waiting for something to happen, so i can call my synapses to attention, so i can frame you and show you off in front of strangers in brunswick again. 

my funny car takes me home, my little friend. i drive on autopilot under the super moon, even still trying to learn at this late stage. low voices lull between squeaks from the back. i settle in the warm air. 

(maybe someone listens.)

It's raining on prom night

god, i thought, i forgot about the stars up here. perhaps i was too busy learning how to drive along the road to my girlfriends' houses during high school, and too teenage-drunk on the way home to look up. now i am twenty-one years old, driving by myself in a car that is mine, and ignoring its desperate pleas for coolant and oil i lean over the steering wheel and watch the blanket of stars curl over the hills where i live. my heart aches. 

i remember i was seventeen when we first kissed, and all that day i had spent sharing the stage with arty twenty-somethings as an extra for a video clip. i remember i was so proud of that day, a taster of the life i wanted so badly - music, art, being twenty and 'i just moved into a sharehouse in clifton hill' and kissing boys after watching movies about music, art, being twenty etc...technically i suppose my life is similar right now but not in that 35mm technicolour film-y way that i dreamt about. i don't think it ever could be. 

i don't know why i look back and forward and back and forward with a view and idea that is different from reality. i watched my year twelve production of 'grease', which i had so shined in my head, and felt more bitter than sweet. well, perhaps not bitter, but rumbling heaviness that i could recall so clearly - wringing my hands backstage about to sing 'hopelessly devoted to you', pulling the belt of my dress tighter and tighter to shrink my waist to unbearable dimensions. how silly it all was, to leave half a muesli bar in my locker for tomorrow, because a full one would be too much right now. how relieved i am today, to be able to believe, and to realise, how stupid that is. 

i was a funny little baby bird, with a fragile baby voice and beautiful infant ideas. i watched that baby on stage, floundering and finding her feet, and wondered if i'll watch myself now in twenty years time, and see any difference.

i'm so happy, driving with the stars. 

Trembling hands

i'm curled up in the corner of the sinked-in cane couch in the back room of the dream cave. how lucky i am to have a little plastic vine stroking the top of my head (it's ok it's just the cave saying 'i love u, little human'). how lucky i am to be already in a state of constant unpredictable buzz, to never need to agree to pills or anything like that. i have already sacrificed control over my head to my heart and i used to so sing proudly about it but now it's been two years and i still run 10 treadmill-kilometres away from last nights' endeavours. you guys shake your heads at the comedown like it's a hill you climbed up that you gotta climb down. sometimes i feel like i'm running down the same hill you know, so fast like a little kid, so fast so my legs become like magnets to the ground gathering speed as i go. i leave you suckers in my wake, then i meet you halfway back up again before you reach the summit without me.  

you guys shine and giggle and i'm a funny taylor swift song mother sitting in on something so close but so unfamiliar. i wonder what it must be like to know for sure that feeling something is not knowing it. i wonder what it must be like to run only for pleasures' sake, like on that episode of friends where phoebe runs like a little kid through central park because that's the only way it's any fun. i love to run but i dream of the day i don't think about it. 

i sing loudly and defiantly to the pop songs on the radio when i'm driving home from singing to all of you guys about all this stuff. i worry a lot about not much but i do not worry about you knowing all this stupid shit, 'cause i know it's stupid. my little cartoon heart clears its throat and taps me on the shoulder to disagree but i know, i know it's dumb to worry about such things. it took me too long to learn but i did it and i'm proud. 

(i listen to 'running up that hill' and i try to do it too)

photos by my lewis

Long long time

I haven't posted in ages and I've found my desire to post as regularly as I normally used to is lacking a little, mainly because I feel as though I'm repeating myself a LITTLE bit...but I feel like it's all good if I just come back here when I feel like it, because they'll be the best posts anyway. I've been keeping up with things in all my other online lives so if you're on Instagram, Soundcloud or Tumblr, hmu.

I feel actually good about the end of semester, I'm pretty proud of the work that I did and happy with the way things ended. I'm looking forward to next semester, particularly the trip to New York which is going to be so ridiculous and amazing and I'm very excited! Lately my life has been a little in a loop of uni, work, bands, exercise, eat, gigs, sleep, uni, work, bands etc...and it feels good, although sometimes one section of the loop takes over the other sections and everything gets all tipped over but generally, my life is in sync. 

Lewis and I celebrated our two year (2!) anniversary a couple of days ago, which is purely ludicrous and I've suddenly been struck by the realisation that time really does fly when you're having fun. It seems like yesterday, and yet it doesn't, when we were hanging out in a stranger-house, sitting next to each other with a little Jack Russell dog in between, watching Blues Brothers and eating TimTams. It was a lovely dream and I treasure that time, like I treasure the time now, in our little world of music and kisses and making breakfasts for each other.

Some vibes 4 u:

I have it all

I have a teacher at uni who I meet with on a weekly basis to talk about my work. Last week I was telling him about the idea behind this song ~ 

|even though i'm weird, and little, and moody and crazy and normal-looking , one day i'm gonna make it, i'm going to be successful and magnificent and you better watch out, everyone better watch out, 'cause i'm coming for your job|

and he told me he'd never thought about anything like that before and I felt weird and good. It's not about being cocky, it's just about believing in yourself. 

"Juvenile delick-went, but frank and fetching."

an italian actress points at me with wine eyes saying 'you there is something about i i i don't know i i i was drawn to you' and i i i laugh it off (manic arpeggio wild soprano) riding icy spindle fingers red and white lights flushed and pink cheeks slurring stupidly i am drunk

flicking ashes off my lap heavy lids hey lolita sneers in my bag and the train expands inwards i i i imagine me moving mushrooming like one of someone but something doesn't fit and i don't like it

i'm moody as all hell monster crescendoes and convoluted phrasing parenthesis peppered across my circuits not quite justifying the cynic, 

(you little manic)

Sleeping beauty

I was having my normal Sunday afternoon mild-melancholia on the way to my singing lesson a couple of hours ago, and decided to take stock of all the wonderful things that have happened in my life recently to combat it:

~ I have a beautiful dress to wear to my 21st birthday party on Saturday, care of Romance Was Born and my sister who went to the sample sale and got it for me...

~ We had a couple of presentations at uni last week and naturally I found myself sitting cross-legged in the hallway, pouring wine into a water bottle - Adam watched me and laughed, saying 'You're doing a reverse Dave...' Dave, who used to bring old wine bottles to uni and drink water out of them. It was just nice because I hadn't thought about Dave in a while. I giggled for him. 

~ Yesterday I left work, repaid my debts for the birthday dress to Minna and caught the train to Lew's. We rode our bikes to The Societa Isole Eolia on Lygon St where he was doing the music for the play, Le Beatrici. I'd already seen the play the other night but it was great to see it again, and to listen to the Italian language being spoken so carefully and expertly and passionately. It was also lovely to get that big ol' tangle of pride all up in my throat whenever I see someone I love doing something wonderful you know. After the play we went to our dear friend Cass's 21st birthday party and it was so lovely...at one point I mentioned tipsily that I was a little cold and all at once I had jackets pouring in from all sides of my chivalrous companions. I sat nestled into the couch under a mountainous jacket-blankie, resting my head on Lewis's shoulder with a glass of wine in one hand and an arancini in the other. I just couldn't contain myself, with my mouth full of rice and cheese I said "I'M SO HAPPY" way too loudly and people laughed and it was just magical in a dirty young funny way. 

~ I have had a recent thought running through my head that has become a daily thing for me:"your body doesn't have to be perfect. you don't have to be perfect." It sounds very simple but it is actually the most reassuring thing on the planet for me right now which sounds sooooo lame but you know thoughts are very powerful tools. 

~ A really cute dog came into the cafe where I work and sat outside watching his family in their meals through the window and didn't move for like an hour and it was soooooo cute omg

Baby ghosts

little hearts beating 

hyper in the light

i catch my breath 

tripping with the deadlock

you baby ghosts 

speak and float 

sing me to sleep

curl up in the corner

of the couch

curl up in the mess 

of your voices

you baby ghosts 

watching tv 

sing me to sleep

i have it all

(i fall asleep in everybody's arms)

Mwah

It's been a while again, sorry about that...I turned 21 last Friday and it feels unreal and a little uneasy you know. I think I have a fear of ageing or something - my 21st birthday made me feel all anxious and bleurgh and I wanna be young foreverrrrrrrrrr help meeeeeeeee!!! 

Despite those feelings I actually did have a really lovely day - Lewis took me to the aquarium and was a v chivalrous man and paid for everything and held my hand while we looked at the fish. I had dinner with my family which was also v nice and my little sister made a very questionable cake but I appreciated the thought...then I drove to the house Lew is housesitting at the moment and we drank wine and talked about everything and laughed and it was nice.

Last night was the launch gig of Frida's clip for Fault In Our Stars, and it was one of those beautiful gigs that make you feel so happy you could just die. On special and important gig days I like to treat myself to a resty/cruisey type day you know...I like to do a medium workout and shower for aaaages and choose my outfit and maybe make a new crown and do my nails and watch Friends and talk to my dog and go to the shopping centre to get fake eyelashes and strands of fake flowers to decorate the stage - I did this all yesterday and I was feeling so nice...unfortunately my mood hit a bit of a bumpybump on the way into the city, where we got stuck in traffic which I actually cannot STAND not even a little bit, and we were late and I was panickin...but it all turned out OK in the end!!!
I get the best buzz from gigs like last night - audiences can be so generous and so sweet and so incredible and so silent during the quiet songs! I feel so alive - my friend Kitty wrote this: 
'At surface value I'm tightly wrapped in skin but on the inside I'm flayed open all nerve endings and liquid...'

which is such a wonderfully accurate description of how I feel on gig nights. It's a very good and very addictive feeling and I l o v e  i t. And on stage I feel so good and I never, ever, ever feel fat or anything at all, I just feel like I'm living.

Some pics from the gig last night, courtesy of my Aunty...

I fell asleep on the couch with Hud in the middle and Henry on the other side. I fell asleep to laughing and talking and shuffling and YouTube noise and it was the best little half dreamy sleep I've ever had you know. I love everything. 

MMLMMLMMLMML

I have been putting together a performance for a class at uni for the last week or so (um I mean the whole semester) and as each day passes I keep getting deeper down into it - I always have to have these grand plans for my presentations at uni and always, always make things harder than necessary...but if I didn't I guess it wouldn't really be mine...

dream cave

the australian band cloud control have an album called 'dream cave'. it's a great album and some friends of ours love it so much that, in their honour, they named their back shed the 'dream cave'. the dream cave stands proudly beside its ancient house in hawthorn, defiant of its upper-class surroundings and continuing to deteriorate despite our friends' best attempts to get some $$$ from their landlord to fix the floors. nevertheless the six inhabitants of the house love it and the dream cave to (all of its) pieces, and every year they throw a huge party to celebrate, well, everything. 

this year we caught the tram to DC14, walking moonlit streets with fluorescent reflections of the most atrocious neon signs on glenferrie road. our friend bound over to us with his arms spread open with pride - welcome to the dream cave - and led us to the attractions; smoke machine, music videos on widescreen, crucifix joints, and all the bread you could ask for (two of the housemates work in the same bakery). we all smoked and drank the aldi punch and someone forgot about the chicken nuggets in the oven so we jumped through the bathroom window to prevent a house fire. 

maybe it was the punch or the vapour but i couldn't contain my love to just my little heart that night - it punched its way out of my chest, had me stroking peoples' cheeks in wonder and crawling into my dear friends' ribs just to hug them there. dojo rising off the dream cave album played on repeat in my head and i thought about sleeping on a rained-on mattress and living in the dream cave. i thought about how my head is a dream cave most of the time. i think too much and create too much in there for it all to exist. my future lives there and everything i want to be is just a dream right now but in the dream cave i let it live outside for a couple of hours. i loved everything, i was everything, i knew everything.

but now my dreams are just dreams. i wish i could properly show you how it felt to live inside a dream cave but now we can only pretend. if you're lucky, maybe next year i'll pick you up in a shopping trolley full of bread and wine and i'll push you down glenferrie road to the dream cave. but for now, it is just a dream.

~

21

I'm writing this to you from my SICKBED (which is coincidentally also my normal bed), as I'm listening back to a tune I've been working on for the last couple of days (work been delayed by the mucus-y vocal tone that I'm rocking right now, 0/10 do not recommend). I'm very frustrated by sickness in general and had a lil bit of a bumpy health ride the last couple of months (physical/mental) so I was JUST getting back on my feet when I got slapped around the face with another cold! Buuuhhhhh. But yesterday my sister was talking about her boss who has rheumatoid arthritis which is an awful, debilitating illness that makes me so, so grateful for the health that I have. So I don't really have any right to complain huh...

Last night I went to the LuWow to see KB do their thang and it was really fun...our friend works behind the bar there so I kept going up to get drinks and chatting away without realising til later that I had a bigger pile of change in my hand than I was expecting (thanks grrlfriend if u read this!) Weirdly I felt like I hadn't been out in like forever and all I'd been doing is blowing my nose into napkins at work etc so I don't know I felt very free, especially on the train ride there. I love trains at night because I'm usually headed somewhere fun and it's all very nostalgic and there are hardly any people and I like to imagine stories for the people who are there, where they're going, is that person they like going to be where they're headed and secretly deciding to root for them or not in my brain...I like to put on really ~moving~ songs and get all worked up into a little ball of feelings and play my life out like a video clip, daydreaming about the day when I can really live my life like that and not just in little made-up minutes on the train at 10pm, you know how it is. Anyway yeah so last night was fun even though I had a cold even though I wore the wrong shoes and even though the LuWow shut at midnight (?). 

Anyway I wrote this thing about how I'm very scared of turning 21 but I think I might also be a little bit excited about it too. I'm going to try and keep posting regularly but sometimes things happen and I have to be a real world person you know how it is. Much love to you. 

^^ COME TO THIS OK BYE ^^

Yeah/Alright

then i'm gonna break your heart
should've probably told you from the start
but i'm lazy
and i don't want anything

yeah 

(alright)

Some recent words:

maybe one day i'll stop tripping over my own feet

but not today

i'll be crushin' pills and killing it still 

delicate and dilate don't you forget it

and i know that i'm a fire starting handful

a hurricane and little tangled

circuits. have you noticed?

you are all i need

and i need it now

you hold my bones upright

kissing stitches tight

all across my ribs, my skin and my cheeks

my heart beat, beat, beat.

I know she knows she knows

I thought I'd better update since I haven't in a week or so! 

My hair is greeny-blue with roots hanging out and I'm gonna let it be for a while because I am poor and the colour's all mermaid-y so it'll do for now. I've been having porridge for breakfast with peanut butter all swirled around it and it's so delicious every night before I go to sleep I look forward to it in the morning no kidding. I've been learning French for a couple of months now and even though I would like more time on my hands to practice I've definitely improved heaps, et ma prof aime mes fleurs, c'est bon...

I've been thinking about my life when I'm older, where I'll be living, travelling, will I be who I want to be, will I be singing in my bands around the world like I want right now? Will I want something else? What will I look like? Will I still be running, eating porridge, giggling? It's stuff that sits in my head all the time, along with some other stuff I wish wasn't there, and some stuff I'm super glad to have so close. 

just another drawn out trouble
for you and i
.

Welcome to the dream cave

lying on a blow up mattress next to my friends all except one who’s on poppers and can’t stop moving i’m so sleepy but i hear people laughing about it so i open up my eyes like a little kid trying to get a later bedtime

they built a dream cave with streamers and smoke machines and i climb in through the window checking on the chicken nuggets they pick them up with chopsticks and i can’t stop thinking about it

i feel so sick but it passes in a minute out of the cab stepping into the air

stony sleep creeping crawling into bed swimming dreamy inside my head

(i guess all you need to remember is that it's gonna be alright in the end and if it's not alright it's not the end)