Entries Tagged 'Personal' ↓

I've been going back and forth about what to write about 2009. There's a part of me that would like to write candidly (and regularly) about what goes on in my life and how I feel about it; people sharing stories of their lives produce some of my favourite online writing, and the idea of being a little bit more open and accessible is increasingly appealing.

It turns out, though, that it will take some significant brain-shifting for me to feel comfortable with (or even capable of) that kind of thing. I'm not even sure it's an effort I want to make. I used to write things that I couldn't talk about, but these days I'm both better at talking and head over heels in love with Real Conversations. I'd much rather converse with you specifically than plaster myself all over a public space and hope that you notice.¹

That being said, last year was a fairly extraordinary time for me, and I would be sorry to leave it entirely unremarked.

I moved cities once and moved house three times, the last time to move in with the most awesome housemate imaginable. I got a job, then got the same job in a different city, and I got really good at it really quickly. I ended a relationship (one of the most sorely testing experiences of my life so far²), met wonderful new people, and worked on reconnecting with wonderful old people (with varying degrees of success). I was sick for the entire year, and I stopped holding my breath and hoping to be well again soon.

I listened to the Mountain Goats excessively enough that even I feel faintly embarassed about it, while struggling to be interested in new music and seeing almost nothing live. I set myself a goal of reading 52 books in the year, reached it quite early, and then burned out spectacularly.³ I played a few excellent computer games and saw a few excellent films, which rekindled my dormant interest in both.

Most importantly, though, I did a lot of thinking. And I do mean a lot.⁴

The relationship saga taught me a whole lot.⁵ I learned that it really does take two to tango; more specifically, the effectiveness and quality of any communication is always going to be partially out of my control no matter how good a communicator I become. I learned that sometimes disengaging completely is the best (and even only) sane option, even (or especially) when it means letting what feel like hurtful untruths go unchallenged. I learned that sometimes you just have to let people do whatever they have to do, and get on with what you have to do.

Incidentally, what is with the romanticisation of terrible, passive-aggressive, co-dependent behaviour in popular culture? Oh, things are terrible, there is no reason to think they will improve (especially since we are not doing anything to change anything), I don't even like you very much a lot of the time, but ~it's love~ so we should stay together? Fuck that noise.⁶

The phenomenal thing was the depth and breadth of thinking about relationships that got triggered. I am capable of some pretty determined and sustained introspection, and my lack of spoons meant I had plenty of time to spend with myself. One of the more significant revelations was that I have always been at my happiest when single.

That says a few things to me, but they all fall under the umbrella of "Hey! I think you've been doing it wrong!" I am, after all, the common factor in all my relationship and non-relationship periods. So I gave myself some mandatory time off to think about it all: a year of being absolutely not allowed "relationship stuff", to be extended or not depending on how much I could figure out in that much time.⁷

It has been brilliant. Having that explicit rule has not only given me the mental and emotional space to re-evaluate what I want in relationships and how I should approach them, it has also made me feel much freer to interact with people in whatever way feels most natural.⁸ I am still not sure what will happen when my year is up, but I am confident that whatever it is will be good for me.

Other things that I spent lots of time thinking about last year include: post-ironic appreciation; a large set of ethics- and 'ism'-related stuff; identity; mortality; and, most of all, sincerity and the pursuit of happiness.

By the end of 2009 I felt happier and more like myself than since ... well ... ever. Certainly since long enough ago that whoever I was then doesn't really count as the same person.

2010 so far has only continued this trend. People continue to be awesome. I have rediscovered music (recorded and live) in a big way. Urges to write more and take more pictures and travel more and have more conversations and cook more new foods are gnawing pleasantly at me, and I am even okay with not having the energy to act on most of them.

It is good to be alive.

1. It's not immediately clear how my desire to keep writing this blog fits in here, but I think it has something to do with a distinction between conversations and pieces of writing. Maybe I'm trying to practice "doing writing" more. Goodness knows I could do with the practice. [↩]
2. Ambiguous, perhaps, but either reading is true enough. [↩]
3. I haven't finished reading a book for a few months now. [↩]
4. Here's where this veers into "my life and how I feel about it". Awkwardness to 11! [↩]
5. Some of it was stuff I already knew, intellectually, but was yet to really know on an emotional level. [↩]
6. I never quite know what to do when something I would never say perfectly encapsulates what I want to say. In this case, as you can see, I went with it and then siphoned off my discomfort into a footnote. [↩]
7. Of course, I have a relationship of sorts with everyone I interact with, but I think we all know what I'm talking about here. [↩]
8. The reasons for this are, I think, a little too complex and personal for this post, but I can elaborate if requested. [↩]

This topic is one of five given to me by sylver_spiders on Livejournal. Feel free to request topics from me in a comment.

I suspect that I started calling to social activities "adventures" to take the edge off the stress of organising them. I am not a take-charge-and-organise person by nature; I have a strong preference for being a follower, or at most proposing amendments to plans that are mostly complete. In the last several years, however, circumstances have tended to demand that I either step up and organise things myself or accept that I will not see most of my friends.¹

At any rate, my socially-retarded self² of a few years ago quailed at the thought of asking questions like "would you like to come out for dinner?" of anyone but very close friends, but could manage suggesting a "food adventure" to just about anybody. As the trend caught on it became even easier, because "adventure" was a generally understood and accepted social shorthand. I don't need to use the term this way nowadays, but it was really useful at the time.

One of the things I liked (and like) most about adventures is the implication that anything is possible. (A few years ago I went on innumerable supermarket adventures, which were always much more fun than simply going to the supermarket.) There is also a sense that very little planning or responsibility has to be involved, and that any participants in an adventure are prepared to simply see what happens. If I "organise" an adventure these days it is usually an attempt to welcome disparate people to join me in doing something fun, without feeling like I have to be personally responsible for each person having an excellent time and everyone present getting along really well.³

In the last eighteen months or so,⁴ adventures have taken on an additional, personal meaning for me. Because my activities have been quite severely curtailed, many of the everyday things that used to be a matter of routine have become more difficult, sometimes assuming epic proportions. That could have left me feeling overwhelmed by unmanageable tasks (and sometimes, to be honest, it does), but my self-imposed conditioning means I can see just about anything I do as an adventure of sorts. And that makes life seem pretty okay, even when it isn't.

1. More recently my health has prevented me from either organising many events or accepting many invitations, so my intention is not to make pointed remarks. At least, not about the current situation. [↩]
2. I mean this quite literally. There were a lot of things that I just did not know how to do. Fortunately, I don't think my social retardation was of a kind to make me That Guy™ at parties; it just made me feel very awkward and stressed out about things. [↩]
3. This does not usually work, but I live in hope. [↩]
4. Actually, on closer inspection it's more like twenty-one months. Hrm. [↩]

It's been more than a week now since I've been able to listen to music in my usual manner.¹ Listening to as many as two songs in a row has mostly been beyond me, and even my internal jukebox has been largely silent.

I'll come back to that.

There don't seem to be any particularly nasty -isms that one falls prey to by ragging on hipsters,² and as they are such an easy target I find myself doing so quite frequently. And why not? Such studied coolness, rooted only in the performance of being cool, cannot be anything but ludicrous in my eyes. Hipsterism is the subcultural equivalent of celebrities who are only famous for being famous.³

Last Friday I went to a funeral. I arrived early and alone, and found myself intimidated by the clusters of people standing around outside. "A hipster funeral?" I thought, although maybe that was some kind of emotional self-defence and I'm pretty sure it was in poor taste. It didn't help that they seemed to consider themselves at an everyday social event when all my instincts were demanding sombre looks and hushed tones.⁴

I find myself unable to write much about the funeral itself or my personal experience just yet; by maintaining a strict emotional distance from it I carry on with the ten thousand things that keep my days ticking over, but the cost of that is an inability to express what I would like to express. It will come in time. (Unless it doesn't.)

What I am coming around to, in my distractable and roundabout way, is that seeing all those hipsters stick together in their grief, including young men who cried and hugged each other without irony or awkwardness, reminded me that phoney affectations and asymmetrical haircuts often just camouflage human beings who think about things and care for each other. And a lot of things that are often seen as important - even essential or "identity"-defining - turn out to be pretty irrelevant when something happens that really matters.

Over the last week or so I have been gently coaxing my desire for music back out into the open. Old favourites have proven to be poor bait, laden as they are with history that I am trying to leave alone. The occasional mood-encapsulating song has only led back into silence instead of the usual daisy-chain of associations. Today, though, I have found my way thanks to a sunshiney, shoegazey, post-punk/dream-pop band called Moscow Olympics (Myspace), who have come out of nowhere to lend me some much-needed momentum.

It is easier to be sad with a soundtrack, and also easier to be happy. It is easier to be anything at all.

1. That is, listening to album after album for as much of my waking day as is physically possible. [↩]
2. The hipster concept in general, rather than specific individuals, although being only human I do stray from the righteous path on occasion. [↩]
3. That being said, I recently saw Paris Hilton in a TV pilot. She sent herself up marvellously and was extremely funny. Let that me a lesson to me. [↩]
4. If you were to ask me, I would tell you that I have no problem whatsoever with people reacting to events in whatever manner comes naturally to them. But faced with jarring behaviour in trying times, my gut rebels. [↩]

On Tuesday morning we were greeted by the most scorching incarnation yet of the Blue Screen of Death. My goodness, it was hot in the tent. I rewarded myself for my clever escape by buying a delicious mushroom burger for breakfast.¹

Today's early-in-the-morning gap-filling artist was Grace Barber, from the Seychelles via Perth. Playing what she described as a combination of reggae and African island rhythms, she apologised for her hayfever-stricken voice (although I didn't notice anything amiss) and had a fake horn section (a Korg synth). I have no real literacy or even frame of reference when it comes to this kind of music,² but I liked this.

Brothers The Kin followed, as did their not-inconsiderable following; people were standing in the aisles before the set even started. I have to admit to being a little dubious - a couple of pretty boys with lots of teenage girls clamouring to see them? Chances were good that this would not be my kind of thing at all.

But then they started singing. At first I didn't even realise they were both singing (the joy of singing in unison with relatives), and their voices were very beautiful. Sometimes the performance was marred a little by the younger brother's tendency to be a diva, or the overshadowing of a melody line by vocal gymnastics, but their musicianship and showmanship made what would otherwise have been a neutral experience very enjoyable.

Particularly notable was the comparison of audience members to cows (clustered under the one available tree - it was a hot, hot day) and some impressive audience participation.

I find Kevin Mitchell's decision to perform as Bob Evans a little bizarre. His "solo" performance here, backed up as it was by several other musicians, came across not so much as "Kevin Mitchell performs country music solo", more as "Kevin Mitchell wants a grown-up band now". For all his rock-star antics and aviator sunglasses, this was pretty middle-of-the-road stuff.

Few of the new-to-me artists I saw at Woodford had been talked up as much as Doch. Perhaps it was unfortunate that they were the third or fourth group that I'd seen with a trumpet and Eastern European influences; perhaps the blame lies with the sound engineers at The Grande, who once again let muddy, bass-heavy sounds assault my ears, or perhaps I was just getting burnt out by days of Woodford and no longer properly receptive to new music. Everyone else absolutely loved this show, so I am confident in saying that the problem lay with me.

My favourite thing about this set was the pillar of rising gravel dust kicked up by the dancing people and illuminated by the beam of sunlight that came in through a gap in the top of the tent. My least favourite thing was the air-ukelele that the bandleader appeared to be playing with his trumpet.

Arriving (extremely) early for the next heat of the band competition, I was fortunate enough to catch the tail end of another Hey Rosetta! set. This time complete with violinist, they put on as great a show as before: the cellist's bow was worn ragged and at one point he ran around the stage waving a tambourine, the electric violin added a wonderful dimension to the sound, and my notes indicate that at one point I was moved to write down "hee hee skinny white boy arse dance".

Afterwards the members of Hey Rosetta! were signing copies of their CDs at the merch tent, and despite my general lack of interest in such things I took advantage of the opportunity to talk to them. There was quite a clump of fangirls centred around the singer, leaving the more interesting end of the band (mmm, bass and cello) vulnerable to my conversational attack. So I chatted a bit to Romesh and Josh (ooo, first name basis), found them to be friendly and interesting and somewhat shellshocked by the transition between Canadian winter and Queensland summer, and promised to try to send them audience members for their Melbourne show.

During this time I also noticed that the guitarist is Very Tall. Goodness gracious!

I don't have any notes from the band competition heat from that day, but I remember even now how impressed I was. The competition was a perfect illustration of why I value creativity within constraints so highly; give people something to bump up against and all of their energies are concentrated into a smaller space, so that (unless they get the sulks about the constraints and don't try) the result has a focus and quality that's often missing otherwise.

After wandering around aimlessly for a bit I claimed a spot on the hill to watch Dougie MacLean. Something of a Scottish folk legend, he had the sort of unassuming air that tends to win me over. Another victim of the extraordinary heat, he apologised for displaying his Scottish legs and suggested that it would be a "short" concert.³ I wasn't paying a great deal of attention during his set, but nice folk songs and a Scottish accent meant he couldn't go too far wrong in my book.

Ducking into the Empire tent, I saw the last part of The Grimstones, a charming, dark little fairytale about a family of monsters and freaks. The marionettes reminded me quite strongly of Tim Burton fare like and , and the musical accompaniment did nothing to dispel that impression. I liked that they had two narrators, one speaking and one signing; unfortunately, the nature of the venue meant that it was quite difficult to see what was happening on stage most of the time.

Next came the performance I was actually at the Empire to see: with Miss K. Sadly, this turned out to be a nasty, homophobic piece of cabaret trash instead of the boundary-pushing queer cabaret I had somehow been led to expect. I left very quickly indeed.

As a result, I had some extra time on my hands and didn't feel the need to collapse into sleep just yet, so I trekked up to the Amphitheatre (my one and only visit for the festival), where Augie March would be playing later. As luck would have it, this meant that I saw The Boat People finishing up, playing the one song of theirs I knew: "Awkward Orchid Orchard".⁴ A lovely little song, and a nice little band, the kind of thing that makes me wish Triple J didn't play so much junk nowadays so that I could keep listening and hearing good stuff.

Ah, Augie March. Since I have paid no attention to them at all, but some of the songs from that album put down particularly strong roots in a tumultuous period in my life. Seeing Augie March live tends to mean a pleasant mass of unfamiliar but listenable sound seeded with wonderful nostalgia bombs.

I lay on the hill and let the bombs fall where they would.

1. OM NOM NOM. [↩]
2. I have been reflecting recently that all of the music I like is exceedingly white. I usually stand still at concerts, too. [↩]
3. Cue groans from the audience [↩]
4. That song also happens to have one of my favourite music videos of recent times. [↩]

I'm not dead.

I am, however, still sick. I'm also working now, albeit less than full-time, and having to budget my energy fairly ruthlessly as a result.

Rewarding as it is to write in this blog, if I devote sufficient energy to it I am left with almost nothing for physical activity (extremely important), social interaction (ditto), and keeping my physical environment under control (very important if you are me, which I am).

So there won't be new posts here for a while. I'll get back to it when things pick up. Which will happen, because I'll be doing those important things that help with that kind of thing.