banquet/bloc party

Most of the time I visit this place for a thought vomit. To open up my brain and go 'blergh... okay, that felt good". I always tend to make positive or utterly irrelevant, silly statements, as hard as that is for me because my brain errs on the side of bleak and melancholy, sometimes even self indulgently maudlin. This time it feels like it's going to be hard to put a positive spin on. Feel free to tell me to step back and get some perspective but with a brain like mine its all I ever do. To stop myself from being selfish and feeling sorry for myself or feeling anything but good things towards other human beings. I step back, I take into account all the things that are going on in my life and theirs and can understand anything because I know we are all human. We make mistakes and we are not perfect. I make mistakes. I am not perfect. Right now my brain feels like a flooded street where you can't see the road signs. So, stop reading now or go call me a waaaaahmbulance. Because I've decided to let it out.

At the beginning of this year I let my guard down and explored a part of myself that I had always neglected. I met someone and I let them in. Freely. Unguardedly. It wasn't hard. Everything about them, talking to them, being near them, made me feel comfortable and happy and the feelings that I developed for them developed almost imperceptibly. The feelings were so natural and so involuntary. They still are.

Today, I can't stop wondering what has happened. I stayed late at work because I didn't want to think about it. I got home and poured myself a glass of wine, dyed my hair and danced ridiculously to Bloc Party in an effort to blank it out. That's what I do. I bottle up. Pfft! Who needs to know my problems? So I step back. Get some perspective. I see it so clearly from their perspective. Because I'm so endlessly curious as to all sides to the story. Which means I can understand why I don't get to hang out anymore. It also means I don't understand why at all.

So. This. This is what has made me the most incredulous:

I'm 'too good'.

For the past week or so, I've been hearing that a bit. From my gorgeous friends who gave to me their time and attention and sat and listened to me try and work out what was happening. What was going on. Because the feelings and situation is so new to me that I coudn't contain it myself. I had no control. I spilled over and they were there. I love them for it.

Then last night; being told I was too good sounded so completely unattractive. So completely boring.

Because it was the reason.

I'm a fallible and awkward and ridiculous human being. I might somehow fit the description of a good person if you squint at me. It has nothing to do with wanting to do the right thing or keeping up appearances. I tried that years ago and I suck at fitting in. It has more to do with being shy. Being socially inept. Being scared. I always have been of anything new and anything that feels out of control. Of feeling just. like. this.

If my being shy comes across as arrogance, my social ineptitude as me being a snob or my being scared as me being judgemental; maybe stick to that. Because right now I'd almost prefer that to being told I'm too good again. Because fitting the description of being good has served as a detriment to the continuation of something (I thought was) real and just starting between two people. And that sucks.


*The situation has been REALLY oversimplified here. This is all just my frustration. It's all up in the air and I am holding on to a very little thin twisty twine-like thread of hope. I'll only let it go when I'm told to. Because I happen to think it's worth it. I just wish I could do something if some sort of support is required. How funny, in hindsight, was it for me to choose "I Know It's Over" for the last post...

i know it's over/the smiths

Again, a song introduced to me by a friend. Louise was telling me her favourite band is The Smiths and she was talking about this song and how she loves how crushingly Morrissey sings the line "oh, mother I can feel the soil falling over my head" towards the end of the song. So, naturally, I went out and bought the best of the Smiths (some of you may be surprised at the fact that I'm a music geek and I know nothing of The Smiths other than "How Soon Is Now?" - and that's only because I've seen "The Wedding Singer"). What an AWESOME song. Man, they were a great band, huh? As much as the lyrics are melodramatic and dour (my favourite kind), they made GREAT songs that sound so fabulous. I really love the bass guitar especially (incidentally, The Smiths bass player toured with Badly Drawn Boy - a fact that was pointed out to me at the time when I saw him play a few years back and now I'm wishing I was more excited about it!) There was a guy at school who had the Morrissey quiff and wore a threadbare and fading Morrissey T-shirt ALL the time. I loved that. At the same time I also enjoyed poking fun at the words to Morrissey's song "The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get". It was that line saying "I will be in the bar, with my head on the bar", not only the line but the way he sang it. Cracked my adolescent brain up. Kind of still does.

I had a fantastic week last week, I'll tell you about it in a minute, though this week is turning out to be slightly less fantastic. So, for obvious reasons, I choose to focus my attention on last week and also take this opportunity to apologise to my gorgeous sister:

Carly, I am sorry I haven't been blogging. I'm a bad girl. I'm going to make more of an effort to write ridiculous and inane things here regularly, just so you know I am not going insane... which I know you sometimes think I am. Perhaps sometimes justifiably so.

Anyway, so, last week. It was great.

Tuesday. I got a postcard shaped like a London post box. Yes, all the way from London. I also had dinner with Julie at Seagrass and had that rare though now and then occuring meal that includes meat:



Man. Seagrass make the best rocket and parmesan salad. Ever. Actually, come to think of it... I've only ever tasted theirs. Oh, and the aioli! I always thought it was a snobby name for tartare sauce. Woah, no way. Totally different and WAY more delicious. Thanks for spotting me the rest of the money for dinner Julie, I owe you... hmmm, lets say breakfast at Tongue and Groove.

Wednesday. I spent the whole day just trying to speed it up so I could go and see the man whose songs I love, Mr Lou Barlow (worst photo ever):

He'd just finished the Dinosaur Jr tour and decided to hang around Australia for some solo gigs He asked how many of us went to see 'Dino' and then proceeded to finish the conversation in hand gestures - from all accounts their gigs were louder than ever before. He played for over two and a half hours and totally could have forever, none of the audience would have minded. He stayed on stage selling his T-shirts afterwards. Mid-way through the gig it turned into busking, he would stop playing a song, tell a yarn or a joke (he's a very funny man, it's kind of jarring hearing him tell a funny story then go into a really mellow beautiful song) and then someone from the audience would yell out a song title and he'd either say "okay" and start playing or "that's not my song!" or "I can't play that, I recorded it then never played it again" or simply "no." Close to the end a guy came up to the front and when a song finished he yelled, " hey Lou, it sucks, but I have to go, can I buy a T-shirt?" So Lou sold him the T-shirt but he didn't have change for a $50 so they guy said "I'll take a song instead?" To which Lou nodded and the guy proceeded to ask for my favourite forgotten Folk Implosion songs from the record "Dare to be Surprised", my copy of which has lived in a box in a cupboard in Darwin for the past five years. I'd say the night made my year so far. Lou has rocked my world for over ten years and he never grows old to me (unlike some other bands I loved sadly have). (To those of you who thinks T-Bone let you down last Wednesday, I apologise. A girls got to do what she has to do though.)

Thursday. Well, all week was a work conference. That's tiring enough. Thursday night we all had dinner at the bosses house. I love dinner at the bosses house. Only because the bosses wife cooks. She makes the most amazing salads and side dishes and ooh la la! I love it. I wish I had taken photos of what she'd made. A rocket, wholegrain mustard and beetroot salad. An eggy, croutony, parmesan cheesy salad (hmm, sounds not unlike a Caesar salad). Plus a yummo pasta salad with asparagus and tomato and kind of peppery lovely saucy thingy. She always says that if I like her salads, I should come to her place when they have a barbecue with everyone from the canal. She said some other ladies make the most insane salads but they are really good... and reeeally competitive. When she told me that it made me think of the party they throw for Edward in "Edward Scissorhands".

Friday. I should have seen the cold coming. As soon as I walked in the door I thought to myself, I'll just have a lie down on the divan. HALF AN HOUR later I wake up and scoot my butt over to South Bank to see Loz and anyone who might still be there. Loz ist rad. We nearly had to send out a search party for Corrina after she was gone a looooong time looking for the toilet, but she had found "Speed of Purple" playing in the midst of the markets so we all wandered down to watch. I'm really starting to love "Speed of Purple". I started feeling like a lurgy had hit me so I said goodbye and walked home and woke up with the nasties. Blergh.

This week is really not so bad considering its only Monday. What a drama queen.

i get along without you very well (except sometimes)/nina simone

I was introduced to this song by my dear friend, Andie. It was written by one of her favourite songwriters, Hoagy Carmichael - who also wrote the gorgeous "Georgia on My Mind". I'd never heard it before and she had just introduced me to the amazing Nina Simone. She asked me if I'd heard it and when I said no, she leaned in and started speak-singing it to me with a cheeky grin on her face. When I found it a few years back on a big old cheap Nina Simone compilation I remembered Andie's grin and finally got to hear it in its completeness. Such a sad yet funny song.

So, I promised someone that I would write here almost every day this year. It is now the last day of January and I haven't written a thing (okay, now I have). It's not that nothing has been happening. It's just that so much has been happening and time has been spent elsewhere. Today I decided I should write. Something.

Today happens to be a decade to the date that I left Adelaide with the heaviest heart imaginable. Now, though, my heart couldn't be lighter. Well, I'm sure it could, but I'm now more of an optimistic pragmatist, if that's possible. I was such a downer back then. My poor parents. That awful, surly 17 year old in the back of the Magna with her Walkman blaring Sonic Youth's "Sentimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star" the WHOLE way from Adelaide to Darwin. Complete with the view that they had RUINED HER LIFE. I look back on the whole period as a comedy really. There is no other way.

I'm not the kind of person to believe that a New Year can herald the beginning of an era. There has to be a springboard, surely. Some kind of change, which dominos on to more change. I just don't know. What I do know is this last month, starting from the first day of January, has been entirely new to me. I think it's been building up for some time. There are things I've been letting go of. Things I've been coming to terms with. In really small insignificant everyday things. And in saying that it seems it is that very fact, that it has all been to do with small insignificant everyday things, that the rewards of it have surfaced over the last month. Those gentle changes, realisations, acceptances grew into, well, a far more relaxed and receptive Erin. There is so much that I have experienced in the last month that has challenged me in ways I'm not used to. Much is related to my immediate family members. Others are more personal. Things that I'm quite certain I would not have been equipped to deal with six months ago in the way I have now. I couldn't have asked for a better January.

my angel rocks back and forth/four tet

Found on one of the compilations that came with a magazine I used to buy, there is something enormously soothing about this song. I think it's the harp and the slow beat... and no words.

I don't speak to my Dad often. I suppose that makes sense as he's a man of few words. Most of the time he's not keen on talking just for the sake of talking. I really admire that about him. When I do get to speak to him it pleases me. I feel better about the world, other humans and myself and it always reminds me of what kind of person I want to be; one like him.

He's not fussy. He likes to be busy. He enjoys simple things. He doesn't interfere. He's a gentle person. He's quiet and considered. He's smart about most things (and you just don't know until you ask). He doesn't care for gossip. He wants to know you're happy and reminds you that its the most important thing. He's fantastic at deductive reasoning. He likes people and things that are uncomplicated (and don't tell me all humans are complicated, it's humans who make humans complicated). He likes British comedy. I could go on.

I talked to him tonight, so I'm feeling pretty good about things.

the heartache is gone/bettye swann

I've been listening to a CD that I got for free with a music magazine a couple of years back called 'Raw Soul' and the music is just fantastic. Makes me want to dance like a crazy person. Especially the crazy simultaneous head waggle and arm flailing dance. This song gets played more than any of the others on the CD.

I finally took my film from my Holga camera to be processed and picked them up today. The above is a pretty sketchy result, but there is a reason I chose these flowers today.

There was a message on my answering machine when I got home from work tonight from an old man who sounded so very heartbroken:

"Hello, uh, I just rang to tell you that Joan died yesterday at 4pm and, uh, well, uh, we made, we haven't made the arrangements yet, but we'll let you know when we've finalised them... bye now."

I don't know Joan. I don't know the old man who left the message. I did, however, burst into tears.

These flowers here, they are for Joan.

May she rest in peace.

skull/sebadoh

I love this song. Not only because it was an association I made when I took this photo, but because its energy and the feeling it gives me has never wavered in the years I've been listening to it. It reminds me of going to school. Of the rumpus room in our backyard at Hargrave Street. Of friends. Of pets. Of feeling unencumbered.

In the last fourteen days there has been a few things occur, both by choice and by happenstance that I feel are inextricably linked... or I just like to play connect the dots... and things happening by happenstance can't be inextricably linked I suppose...

Firstly, while browsing the local video store, I decided to hire the first season of Six Feet Under. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but I was feeling like something different. It was a good choice for something different. It made me think about death in completely new ways. About my family in completely new ways.

Secondly, I went grocery shopping and as I wandered the aisles, I found myself passing the same woman in each aisle, weighed down by her basket, phone stuck to her ear in her whole world. In one aisle she stopped just as we passed each other and exclaimed into her phone; "Well, you could be hit by a bus on your way home so just tell me what you want me to make for dinner!" I found that sentence fascinatingly absurd, yet in keeping with where my thought patterns were after watching Six Feet Under.

Thirdly, a conversation I had with a man who came into work. I'm usually not the small talk type but he was waiting and seemed to like talking. How we got onto the subject I'm not sure but he told me about a particularly terrible point in his life where he took a phone call at ten o'clock in the morning. It was his wife, telling him she'd just had a car accident. As soon as he hung up from that phone call, his phone rang again. It was his Mother, his Father had just passed away. As soon as he hung up from that phone call, his phone rang again. It was his employer, telling him there was something urgent he needed to attend to at work. He told me it was such a ground shifting moment and completely changed his perspective on what was important in his life.

Fourthly, on Saturday night I didn't want to go out, I didn't want to see anyone. This is not unusual for me, let's face it. It 's just it was important to me to go to the dinner though. In the car on the way there I started thinking about what I would do if anything happened to my family, particularly Carly, and Mum and Dad. My heart started pounding. I started to cry. It was surreal. I don't cry very much. At all. I started praying for them, in my way. Sending thoughts out to them I guess.

Lastly, Carly had an accident on Sunday morning. She was driving to work and a little old lady did a u-turn in front of her as she drove down Boundary Street. Carly is fine, bruised but fine. So is the lady. Thank God. It scared me so badly when she told me.

I'm not sure what my point was. I guess these things have just been on my mind.

damage/yo la tengo

I've always daydreamed about making a film where the entire soundtrack is the Yo La Tengo album 'I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One'. Some of the songs on the album have always caused my imagination to spontaneously conjure up scenes for my film. 'Damage' in particular. I think it is a sad scene. I see a foggy beach, I feel heartbreak... wait a second, my film sounds cheesy. Anyway, 'I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One' is up there as one of my favourite records ever. I say that about all my favourite records, right?

I love Yo La Tengo. When I listen to them I actually believe I wouldn't mind if they were the only band in the world. I was the happiest I'd been in a while when I got to see them play at The Tivoli in 2003. I was so glad that Decoder Ring supported them. It was a perfect pairing. I was pretty gleeful that night. Full of glee. Yo La Tengo made their sublime noise, were funny and as an encore, asked the audience to shout out requests and obliged readily. Ira made me think of Thurston Moore the way he played his guitar. Georgia was so deadpan, playing her drums and singing (how do they do that? I mean really?). James a bespectacled gentle giant bass player with a fuzz of curly hair. I would have happily stayed at The Tivoli forever that night (on the proviso that Yo La Tengo continued to play of course).

I really don't feel justified complaining about this. I thought if I get it out, it may stay out. I was asked to do a role play at work today. A business consultant has been 'engaged' to help the company and its employees fully realise its/their potential. The role play was specifically in an area where I am lacking : nagging. Perhaps there is a better word for it in the business vernacular, but that is how I would label it.

On completion of the role play I saw the look on Mr. Consultant's face and screwed up my nose in anticipation. I was thinking my tone was too stern, too demanding. Mr. Consultant told me that, in fact, I was too nice. I have been told this before a few weeks ago and it bothered me. I was also told I care too much and that it's not necessary for me to give 100% all the time and worry about things that aren't getting done. 90% is good enough. Let someone else worry.

Too nice? Care too much? 90%? Exactly what kind of universe have I traversed into?

I'm also not sure I like the word 'nice' anymore now either. It's just so... nice.

Other than that one of my most favourite photographers ever, Stefano Giovannini, has just recently added two new journal entries which always include these great little quicktime slideshows of shots he's taken that sometimes relate to the words in his journal. I love his shots of people, because they are people he meets along the way. His approach is so wonderful and his simple way of expressing himself is just great. I love it.

i feel like a child/devendra banhart

I keep hearing this song whenever I am near a radio and it is the kind of song I admire on a variety of levels:

1. Mr. Banhart is quite an eccentric in the best way possible. I feel very affectionate towards him and his music and method of expression.

2. The lyrics sound like a child wrote them because of their simplicity and sweetness.

I can't think of anymore 'levels' so I'll give you this link to one of the portrait photographers whose work I admire immeasurably and who is also very passionate and politically opinionated and who did something so human and, just, so real to express his feelings and other fellow human beings feelings about the New Orleans situation. Read his words. Watch the images by clicking through them or click on 'view as slideshow'.

I wish I could think in those terms and be that way, doing things that are so simple and yet so meaningful and... just... real.

I'm feeling a bit Meryl-Streep-in-The-Hours right now. My life is soooo trivial. Yet it is up to me to make it less so.

hitting the ground/pj harvey

I heard this song on the way to work on Monday morning and, because of the reminder that it existed, I have been playing it a little too repetitively every chance I get since. I love the combination of Gordon Gano's awesome and jaunty guitar work (how does he play like that?) and PJ's bursting, urgent singing. I especially love the part where the little guitar break comes in and PJ starts whooping. Such a fun song to sing along too...

I received a DVD from my parents this week of a 1983 home video from when we lived in Doha, Qatar. The idea was that I would take it on as a project, edit it into something fun to watch, which is very exciting to me. It turns out it is in the wrong format for me to save it to my computer and manipulate it. Luckily, as I watched it, I learnt to make screen captures.

There are great little snippets of Carly and I crammed inbetween the 3rd International Dubai Rally, a really interesting interview with a Muslim woman and some live Arabic music. One snippet is of us jumping on big squares of bubble wrap in the living room (such simple entertainment that still entertains to this day). Carly is happily jumping up and down quietly apart from the popping of her bubble wrap. I, however, am squealing, jumping, twirling, writhing. Mum has to tell me to be quiet a number of times because of my ridiculous shrieking and squealing. All in what appears to be delirious overexcitement.

There is a great tour of the flat we lived in by Dad, complete with Mum getting caught by the camera numerous times. Each time she is caught, she slinks into the next available doorway in shy reticence with a cheeky grin. Dad's commentary is mundane almost. Endearingly Dad-like: "there's the bathroom... here's the door to the air conditioner unit... that's Erin's hanging thingys..." I love it.

I watched myself be curiously uncooperative and moody. I ignore requests to show the folks at home my bedroom or to wave and say hello. I'm only interested in showing off a picture I'd created with my 'printer' for our cousin, Michelle, or giggling and running away.



Carly is the picture of a calm and intelligent child. She gently talks us through the pictures and artists on the cover and back page of her school yearbook and flips through the pages for the camera. She carefully walks us through a poster she's made of all the colours of the textas she owns. She tells the camera of the different types of Toblerone that you can't get in Australia.



Watching it brought back some extremely vivid memories and humbled me of how extremely fortunate we were in experiencing what we did when we lived over there. The variety of nationalities of the students at the schools we attended was commonplace to us. The travel around the world, which I assumed all children experienced until I learnt that most of my classmates when I returned to Adelaide had not ventured outside the state of South Australia, was such an amazing privilege.