Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Shaving my head and Perfume.


In less than one month I will be doing something I will potentially regret. I am shaving off my head of hair in The World’s Greatest Shave for a charity called The Leukaemia Foundation. The money I raise goes not only to research but helping out people with cancer such as providing psychological aid to patients and transporting those who can’t drive to and from chemotherapy appointments. It’s a really amazing event that many people get behind in Australia. Here’s the link to my page if you want to have a look or even donate:


I was super surprised and overjoyed when I put the call out over facebook. I raised $300 in about an hour from my friends online at the time alone. I’m lucky to have such a large base of supportive people around me. Either that or they’re all keen on buying the right to sign their names and penises on my clean-shaven scalp.  I’m starting to assume the later...  

It seems to have become a rite of passage for university students to take part in this a bit left of centre who don’t give much of a shit about what has been deemed attractive. I guess I fall into that category in a way. I’ve never been afraid of dying my hair bright, permanent colours or attempting a late night haircut by yours truly. These sessions usually have rather abominable outcomes I still enjoy having my own freedom to do what I want with my own body. Who really wants to a hair dresser anyway and be sold overpriced lotions and tonics and be told you have a dry scalp anyway?

Regina Spektor thinks so too so it must be right.

       
Even with my own opinions of hair related self liberation,  I have never done anything quite as extreme as shaving my hair. I’ve always been flippant with what I do with my hair because it is only a temporary change to your appearance really. My hair’s a pretty average dark brown colour naturally; dense and has a complete mind of its own. After I stopped ballet I cut it short with a fringe and pretty much left it to do what it wanted each morning.  I’d wake up one day with a quasi-quiff and know that no matter how much I tried, I wouldn’t be able to get rid of it no matter how much I tried. Sometimes I’d wake up from sleeping on my side and one side of my hair would be sticking out perpendicular to my head and the other side would be sicking straight up, like that side of my face was continuously sliding down a wall. I had a look in the mirror, deemed it a lost cause and left for school.

This is one of my better hair days of 2008: my last year of high school (right).

Just as an aside: I am wearing and Ingrid Michaelson shirt. She is amazing. This is one of my favourite songs of hers but there are many more that are also wonderful.


These days I’ve let it grow a bit and I’ve only just realised that it doesn’t look half bad. 4 years of short hair experiments and failures and I’ve finally got to something that always looks half decent. 

This is my hair about a month ago (left). I just realised that I am eating in both of these photos. it seems to be a relatively regular occurrence.  

Typical. I begin to appreciate something when I am about to lose it.  My emotions are too mixed to make any solid opinions or comments yet.  I just didn’t expect to be this sentimental about the entire affair.  I’m sure I’ll let you know how no hair is going soon.

In other less ridiculous news, I just finished reading Perfume by Patrick Süskind. It based around a French man named Grenouille in the 18th century, cast out of society for his lack of a personal scent. The scent he lacks is made up for however with his own super-human sense of smell.  This skill, along with his complete lack of human empathy leads him into doing some exceptionally evil things I’ll leave you to discover

If you’re looking for a light holiday read, I’d say look somewhere else. This book is furiously engaging and conveys beautiful imagery though impeccable language but it is in no way a happy book. The way scents are described I found so emotive and breathtaking that I’d recommend the book on that premise alone. I’d say read it if you’re a bit of a literary nerd who enjoys macabre novels but prepare yourself for some pretty bleak happenings.   

Yeah...that’s it for me now.

LOVE x

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Old friends.


In high school I did a lot of dancing.  Ballet to be exact. Not just a little either. I danced 24 hours of every week. There’s no real way of describing how much of my life it was. I guess I was kind of married to it. Everything I ate, drank and did; it was all for that one ridiculous thing that meant so much to me.

The 10 or so people I did ballet with mostly stayed at the same school from years 5 to 12. As we were all working hard at school too, the only free time we did have we usually spent together. The few other friends I did have between year 8 and 11 barely stretched passed talking occasionally in and between classes.  The ballet studios were on the complete opposite side of campus to the main school so we barely ate with other people. This over-exposure did lead to some pretty heated arguments, including a frenzied call of death threats in about year 10 which was only humorous in retrospect, I promise you. Looking back however, past all the competitiveness and the bitchiness I think that most of us really, truly loved each other. Ballet was really fucking tough. 4 years on I still sometimes wake shaken and crying from horrid nightmares of flooding studios and my yelling, cursing teachers.

The horror of the classes aside, I do have some wonderful memories of these girls. They threw me a surprise birthday party when I was 13.  I was a quiet, strange sad little thing and I think they thought it’d brighten me up or something. It was spectacular. In true dramatic spirit they leapt from trees in the park adjoining Jess’ house shouting and whooping holding presents and food. I was in no way expecting is and was so surprised and overwhelmed I fell like a heap into their arms; half laughing out of sheer joy, half crying in spite of myself. They’d spent hours meticulously constructing a beautiful paper mache pig. We named it after a girl at school we didn’t like and whacked it until the string holding it onto the string broke...it was indestructible, I swear. I found out later that my friends Veronica and Grace had made it and were keeping it locked in their upstairs bathroom completely unbeknown to me going to their house on quite a regular basis.  I kept that pig for years and only parted with it once my mother had decided if had completely rotted through and threw it out.

As a child, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that day. In all truth, I had pretty much forgotten about it entirely until last week. Looking back I see it as a beautiful act of selflessness and to be perfectly honest, I really miss this time. Ballet was so tough and emotionally draining but I met some absolutely magnificent people there.

By my final year of high school I stopped dancing. I won’t go into details of why exactly because that could go on for many more pages than I have time presently to write. There was a lot of crying and hugging and writing of letters from the ballet girls during this time. I have kept these letters and they are beautifully innocent and sincere; from hearts that had not yet been broken by uncaring hands and minds that were too sheltered by our dance to be corrupted by the world outside. Leaving ballet, I thought I had the most stoic and most supportive friends in the entire world.

After the initial farewell however, we all quickly fell out of contact. We were all going to the same school and taking the same classes but we might as well have been on opposite ends of the universe. Looking back, they must have all been working like dogs just to keep afloat. They were in their final year of high school, they we dancing more than they were sleeping and they were organising a mid-year performance season. I didn’t try to change it because it was all too painful for me to experience. I didn’t know why I stopped dancing really, I just knew that I couldn’t anymore and it killed me. Even losing the identity of a dancer...I still to this day cannot understand it.  So I just tried to block it out for that year and get by without them. I made new, excellent friends and nurtured old ties. It made it one of the most intense years of my life; with lows the depth of the ocean and highs that were like flying.
I felt it all.

Four years on from this initial extrication, we all speak very rarely. I still see Veronica quite often as she lives near to me. We started doing some ballet classes again just for fitness but they started making me feel ill so I stopped. Almost everyone else is at WAAPA dancing away like mad or overseas.  We sent messages out over facebook when someone is back in town offering dates to meet up but no one is ever free at the same time so it usually just peters out into inaction. Last week however everyone seemed to be back home and free to catch up and it happened. There was a reunion of sorts. I met the situation initially with a huge amount of anxiety; mostly worried about how much people had changed and how I would feel about being with people that were living the dream which I dreamt. They’d all finished vocational dance schooling and some of them were even earning money touring around with large companies. Who knew how I’d react to a subject so emotionally volatile to me. I didn’t want to cry in front of them all and look like a pathetic case of lost case of shattered dreams.

After much thought, I grit my teeth and said I would come. I even got excited. These are people that once were my entire world after all.

What lead up to me getting to see them almost made me think the universe was either conspiring against me or trying to save me. Work kept me 3 hours later which was already two hours after the initial meeting time and then flustered, I took the wrong turn on the freeway. I managed a car park in Northbridge thankfully and caught them for post dinner coffee.

Everyone who I had not seen was exactly how I remembered them. There was laughing and silliness and everyone talked as though it was only yesterday that we’d seen each other. Tears welled when I first sat down, overwhelmed again by the nostalgia of times almost a decade ago.  After this time though, I could be nothing but happy with their company right there in front of me. Like I said, I was not going to cry in front of them on pain of complete humiliation. After an hour we departed with promised dinner plans for the following week and smiles on our faces.  All was well.

The importance of having an open heart has never been so apparent to me as it is now. I am always worried of being hurt or rejected that I usually hold back until I can blame it on fate or something equally ridiculous. I may not hurt as often if I live like this but hell, I will rarely feel the love and companionship as I did on the table that night.  It’s something that I sometimes give up on. Here’s to humanity and the good within it.

LOVE x

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I vomited and out came my cold, stone heart.


Okay, so I promised a blog about Bon Iver and the general stupidity of people. I was going to because I was irritated by how happy people are to not know about Justin Vernon but quite happily hate all over him anyway. Ugh.

But not today.

Something much more aggravating happened between the time I posted my promise and now.

Something I knew was coming.

We shall not speak the name of the day and I’m sure it is as horrifying and poignant a time in many peoples’ lives.

For now we shall call it... Viagra Day.

If you took part in this ridiculous ritual yesterday then let me try to enlighten you a little. Viagra Day is for couples to show off to other couples how much better their couple is than anyone else’s couple and to attempt to prove to singularities out there that they are alone in this world. You have been alone, you are alone and you will be alone.

FOREVER ALONE

As one of these said singularities I would like to clarify: I am not bitter about not having a boyfriend. Not now. They are too much effort and I’m far too busy with uni and blogging about useless things.  I am also insanely happy for some couples. The couples that I dislike are the ones that are constantly complaining about their boyfriend or almost breaking up with him...or simply not all that in love with them on a normal day...Then when Viagra Day comes along it’s an explosion of hearts and kisses on their Facebook wall and instagrams of fucking roses and teddybears with names and chocolates posted up over every networking site that ever existed with statuses like:

“3 valentines on...and I am still getting surprise roses delivered to lunch.. You are truly the most romantic boyfi in the whole world hunny”
Followed swiftly by:
“What can I say, I love making you happy:-)”
what. the fucking. shit.

 I’m sure they’ve pelted themselves into your eyes too. Yes. Flowers on Viagra Day would be very surprising. Nobody else would have received anything like it. Well done you.  I can see how it was important to share with all of us who don’t actually give the slightest shit.

Yes, it’s annoying that people are so ready and willing to use their relationship to score some extra cyber attention and possible jealousy but that’s not really the main point I have an issue with. It’s the absurd idea that love should be more celebrated for one day of the year. I may be a romantic but...shouldn’t we show how much we love someone as much as possible? Being provoked into spontaneity isn’t being passionate. Buying shit because it’s what you’re “meant to do” doesn’t mean you care.  Posting about how much you love someone because everyone else is isn’t love.  

It’s like for one day a year couples of the world unite and decide they’re all starring in their own romantic comedies coming out on Febuary 14th. Everyone wants that highest grossing film and they’re willing to sellout in whatever way necessary.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for love but for one day you’re meant to love someone more than you usually love them? Or at least, show them that you love them more? Love in my mind is not a variable quantity. You can realise you didn’t really love someone or you can love someone for different reasons and it therefore feel different...but it’s not something that should be thrown about as much as it is on this absurd Hallmark Day. Surely by exaggerating something as personal and pure as real love (if it exists in this context at all) for this one assigned day you are devaluing it? Not only for yourself, but for people that may actually be properly and wholly in love whose actual lives are being made a mockery by the dim-witted consumerist hordes.  

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is...if you love someone then that is wonderful. Just love them the same all the time. Make it real. Viagra is only for very old men and douchebags.

LOVE (ironically) x 

Monday, February 13, 2012

Bon Iver Fans

I'm just going to post this here for now...

http://who-is-bon-iver.tumblr.com/

Rant to follow after I finish working. I'm committing to the rant.

LOVE x

The Scale of Our Universe

I stumbled across this while I was working today...

Have a look and listen to your brain explode:

http://images.4channel.org/f/src/589217_scale_of_universe_enhanced.swf

LOVE x

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Laneway: anything but a lame day.


So, I experienced the Laneway Festival for the first time yesterday.  Set in the middle of Perth City, the familiar old façades of buildings adjoining the stages made for a spectacular sight. The music wasn't half bad either. I am the queen of understatement (possible oxymoron?).

After going through the most stringent security check of any festival I’ve been to (I literally had to empty my entire bag, dirty socks and all) I was finally in and sitting on the grass with friends listening to The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.  I wasn’t really that fussed with seeing them but it was so pleasant sitting down in the shade next to the Museum Stage drinking a cider and thinking about the day ahead...

Next up was Ana Calvi on the same stage. I had heard her when her debut album was featured on Triple J. Non-Australians, this is a nationwide government funded radio station that is constantly broadcasting and supporting amazing music from Australia and around the world.  A lot of wonderful music that doesn’t see the light of day on commercial radio is celebrated there.  Seriously cool. Ana Calvi had the beautiful, sultry voice that featured on her album and I could see her very quickly winning over the audience. You can’t really go past a beautiful woman playing guitar.The song below was a surprise stand out in her set. She has such power in her voice...it's incredible 

I met up with another friend and decided to go see a local talent Cow Parade Cow in the Speigeltent.

Let me say something first about this beautiful stage. Translated from Dutch, Speigeltent means mirror tent. It has wooden base, its walls are adorned with mirrors and stained glass and its roof is made of draped red and yellow canvas. There were many of these beautiful tents were built in Belgium  in the late 19th century and early 20th century however only a few still remain as travelling performance venues around the world. This particular Speigeltent was erected for the Perth Fringe Festival and Laneway. It has been travelling around Australia and I will dearly miss its presence in the city once it has gone.

I saw Meow Meow in the same venue last week so it was bizarre being in such a distinctive performance space twice and seeing comedy cabaret one week and then flipping over to the other side of the spectrum and dipping into some rocking lo-fi.  

There was an enormous queue to get into the tent as they had reached capacity however we managed to get in relatively early on in their set. The atmosphere was electric. People were dancing like crazy and the band loved it, as it seemed. Love a local band. Have a listen below if you'd like. It picks up into this awesome groove about 45 seconds in if you're an impatient sort of person. I doubt you'll regret it. They are an eclectic mix of people from other bands around Perth including Tusk but this is the best I've heard of them so far... 



After pulling ourselves away from that joyous place, we went to see one of the bands that I was genuinely excited for already: Chairlift. After moving through the chattier parts of the crowd that always manage to pop up no matter who's playing, we found a nice place on the far right. We bopped around, enthralled by Caroline Polachek’s pitch perfect voice. It sounded as good, if not better than their records. They are also cute to boot. I was pleasantly surprised and my respect for them as a band increased tenfold by the second song. The power of live music will never cease to amaze me. 

If you haven't heard of Chairlift, you've probably at least heard this song as it was shoved down everyones throats for about a year by Apple. The wounds have healed now it seems and it was definitely the highlight of the set for me.

Apporaching the meat of the whole matter, Laura Marling graced us with beautiful songs and poignant stories. Just by her stage presence, she forcibly reminded me of a young Sarah Blasko with her blonde hair and angelic face and her graceful, meek and thoughtful movements. I say forcibly because I hate comparing artists and Sarah Blasko is tethered very close to my heart...both their voices and music generally have different and distinctive styles that I thought I could draw my tenuous link without too much guilt.See how beautiful she and the surrounds are? If you can't, I'm sorry. I regret not bringing my camera SO much. 

If you haven't heard any of Laura Marling's work before, I suggest  this beauty:

Let me just say now that I have adored Feist all the way through highschool and beyond into university. I consider her new album “Metals” to be a triumphant and glorious development to her ongoing story.
That night was no exception to my opinion.

Flanked by six other musicians including three backup vocalists, she looked to be as self-assured as her band was. They were a force to be reckoned with, I tell you.  There were two violins clamped to a table and a man (forgive me, I have no idea what his name is but I’d love to know) was playing them BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. I had not seen anything like it. Amazing.

Feist stuck mostly to her new tracks, slipping some old ones in here and there that had been very obviously reworked. Mushaboom had been jazzed up and was a lot more instrumental. This is the best audio I could find...

Even admitting Undiscovered First was a risk to play at a festival as it starts off so slowly and quietly, it completely caught the audience’s admiration. The build-up on this track is phenomenal and I’m infinitely grateful that she took the risk to play it live.
She finished with one of my favourite songs I Feel it All from her record The Reminder. It included some piano antics.  I felt like I was in a dream.
(credit to Feist's Facebook page)

The final group that I saw which I’d like to mention was Neil Finn’s new collaborative effort with his wife Sharon and a few other friends, Pajama Club.  As I said in my last post, I saw Tim Finn at Southbound and was blown away with how together and brilliant he still was 30-40 years after he initially broke into the Australian music scene. His brother is the same, I am happy to say. I guess that feel for art and performance never leaves some people.

Did I mention the band did their own sound check? There Neil was just walking around joking and getting ready, completely at ease. I swear, there is no pretence to this man. I was almost brought to tears by some what some of the small gathering of people told him at this time before the performance. One young man yelled out “Neil, you’re the reason I’m a musician today” and the moment of mixed adoration and humble thanks that was shared the moment Neil acknowledged it was perfect. Although the lack of a large crowd was very obvious as they followed a packed in, crazy M83 audience, it was a warm and loving one. I’m glad he’s still rocking around and doing what he loves with the people he loves for the people who love him.

I think that is all I can write for the time being. So much happened that I could say but I seem to have a serious content control problem and I must be up and awake 4 hours from now. I seriously recommend you have a listen to the links I have posted. Who knows, you might fall in love like I once did.

LOVE x 

Friday, February 10, 2012

Excitement, Finn spotto and warnings from the Big Man himself.


Okay, I’m pretty goddamn excited today. Why you ask? I will tell you. A few days ago I FINALLY bought a Laneway Festival ticket which I’m going to today!  I’ll leave that entry for another day.  Maybe even tomorrow.

I went to my local charity store yesterday (Vinnie’s) as I felt like shopping before work and am excruciatingly poor at present. There are too many things to see and hear and experience at the moment that my life is currently running at a monetary loss. It boasts a net life win presently however so I can’t really complain...

ANYWAY

 I picked up some things...some just because they were dirt cheap, others because I genuinely liked them and a couple that I thought would be generally amusing to try on.

How wrong can one person be...

I found a green American Apparel t-shirt and a beautiful old blue micro pleat shirt embroidered with white flowers; both for $2. They were on sale. I love charity store sales. It’s not like the prices are low enough...That’s how charitable they are. Fucking Legends.   You can’t really get much better than that. I’m wearing the t-shirt now in fact. I’d show you a picture but I’m not sure how to convey its comfort through a photograph. All I’ll say is that it’s like wearing a giant slice of freshly baked Wondersoft. For real.

Then there was the culprit to all my shame. I picked this little lace dress on a complete whim. It could have looked nice on. I don’t know. I also don’t know how I managed to get it on with relative ease but then could not for the life of me figure out how to remove it from my body. After about a minute of struggling and straining it remained jumbled together on my waist like a stupid lacy flotation aid that had no other function than to make me feel completely ridiculous.

I thought about putting it on properly again and venturing out of the change room to seek assistance. I decided against that idea when I looked in the mirror and realised I looked like a hooker. HOW WAS I MEANT TO KNOW IT WAS ONLY GOING TO JUST COVER MY LABIA?!

It seemed like it was time to devise a Plan B.

So, I then managed to extricate my bra allow for more room. It was getting pretty serious. By this time I was starting to sweat nervously a little bit in an already humid little cubicle. It made the silk stick to me a little bit more which was of course, exactly what I needed at that point.

Tried putting one arm through and then the other. Got stuck at half an arm.

Wiggled while jumping up and down, trying to pull it over my head. It was to no avail.

Looked up.

Saw this sign.

Thought about what an omnipresent would think if he saw me now...

Realised that if there was such a thing as an omnipresent being then by definition they would be able to see me.

Sweat glands: initiate overdrive.

Started to consider just sitting in this little place forever.

Was brought back to reality when I remembered I had work in half an hour.

In the end I managed to release myself from its clingy clutches by bending over forwards and doing some mashup between the wiggle and the one arm at a time trick.

SUCCESS!

I left the dress for some other sad fucker. Probably should have left a little note warning about the tenacity of the material and its unique ability to make me look like a crack whore prostitute.

C'est la vie.

In celebration of me seeing Neil Finn today at Laneway:

I saw his brother Tim Finn earlier on in the year at Southbound. He’s Neil’s other side of Split Enz and Crowded House most famously. Even more than 30 years on, they are still truly fantatic people in the music industry. I suggest you all have a proper listen.

I'm going to go prepare myself for an onslaught of awesomeness. 

LOVE x    

Thursday, February 9, 2012

A beautiful week of my life.


I feel okay saying that my week has been fantastically busy. The only reason I’m really writing this now is that I have a spare 40 minutes and no internet connection in my room a million miles away from the router.  There’s no better time than this to document my week and I really do feel as though I need to, even just for my brain’s sake.  Writing it all down is my muggle pensive. 

First of all, I managed pretty much a full sober weekend at a great little place called Amplifier Bar. I say great  but g&ts are a complete rip at $9.50 and the floor is sticky and covered in glass by 9...what gets me in is the music. You can’t help but dance when the DJ dives into some of The Cure after dabbling in some Postal Service and then progressing into that song that you know you know from SOMEWHERE but just can’t think of the name. I was there and completely sober from 9pm until about 3am on both Friday and Saturday and I loved every sticky, sweaty minute.

Friday we just went along because Friday Amps is good fun with a lot of cute boys of the hipster variety scattered around. I’m usually too terrified to spark up a conversation with them but still, it’s nice to see them and know they exist. I hope they have kittens at home. Actually, I'm sure they do.

We went along again on Saturday because one of my favourite local bands Voltaire Twins was having a fundraiser supporting their trip to South by South West (SXSW) in a few weeks time.  I saw them live for the first time when I was completely gone at the uni end of semester show about 4 months ago. I bought their Romulus ep. They signed it. I had a proper listen to said ep and realised they were actually fantastic and it wasn’t my rose stained intoxi-lenses getting me excited over nothing.  So, I went to Fly-By Nightclub to properly watch them play as they supported The Joe Kings (another awesome local band. Have a looksies). It was a beautiful, Fremantle evening. They were wonderful again this week. I suggest you have a look:


If you do like them then I suggest you donate to their American tour page through the link below. You get some wicked stuff if you do and I can’t think of a lovelier group of people to give your spare change to.



For bands I love like Washington and The Grates, SXSW was the start for them. It’s all brilliantly exciting.

So...post amps weekend I gained many awesome pacman based stamp overlays (WINNING) and had a pretty spectacular time
As for Wednesday...
Now, if you’ve read my other two blogs (I know, I’m a prolific writer... ) you’ve probably gathered that I adore Amanda Palmer/The Dresden Dolls. One day I will probably go into detail of exactly why I think she is so incredible. Today is not that day. I bring this up because I went to a performance at The Perth Fringe Festival by a saucy minx proclaimed Meow Meow. It was a bit of a gamble as I’d only ever seen her on youtube covering The Dresden Dolls Song “Missed me”.  She’s a cabaret comedy but I don’t want to get into that because I think everyone should rock up to her gig as my friend and I did; completely oblivious to who and what she is. All I want to say is that she is one of the most spectacular and natural performers I have ever seen. Like, Liza Minnelli standard. For real. Her pianist Lance Horne was pretty great as well. You should have a look at both of their stuff.

That there is Meow Meow and AFP being ridiculous. The crowd participation is admirable. 

After the gig we bought cds. They signed said cds and my beautiful autograph book. I am falling more and more in love with those bound pages each time a person I admire writes in it. One day I might scan some pages on here, who knows. What really got me were Lance’s Amanda Palmer stories. Meow Meow and AFP are best of friends so there was bound to be some. They had coffee with her while she was deliberating dating Neil Gaiman and they attended her beautiful little wedding to him. The engagement and wedding I read so much about on her blog. Read it here if you haven't:
Seriously. Read it. 

They had actually experienced that and I was hearing stories from a first person source face-to-face. Fuck, I fan-girled so hard. I have no regrets. Both Lance Horne and Meow Meow were incredibly appreciative and friendly. Thank you to both. I never in my wildest dreams thought something like that would happen to me.

Lance Horne told me he doesn’t like The Little Prince. He even wrote a song about it.  He likes making puns about chemistry. He wrote a song about that too. Youtube it up bitches.

Yes, there was a carbon dating pun in there. So good.

I came home the next morning to find this masterpiece in the mail.

I then made myself a glass of deliciousness. Notice jealous kitty in the background...

Life is wonderful.

That’s all I really have time to say. I have a lot more to say. So much has happened. Didn't even mention going to the zoo. Shoot. For now this will do. I will become efficient and proficient at this blogging business at some point. I hope you are all having a fantastic February.

LOVE x

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Something that looks a bit like a Frisbee will destroy us one day...


My dearest extreme web surfers,

I wasn’t going to write another blog until something absolutely spectacular happened to me like I got married or won a nobel prize. 

What changed I (do not) hear you ask? 

My life changed. 

This place is addictive as those RPG games like The Sims and Rollercoaster Tycoon. I was not expecting that. I was expecting to lose interest a day after my first blog when I realised that the shit I wrote was just floating around in a sea full of ones and zeros, not to be seen as anything but a muddled mess. My thoughts were a smudge of plankton in the middle of the ocean waiting to be pretty much inhaled by a passing sperm whale. If I was lucky it’d get stuck in his baleen.

While I was working today (Awesome work. I’m sure I’ll explain later), I had a quick look at my stats. I didn’t even realise I had stats. What greeted me was the COLD HARD FACT that four people had viewed my first ever post; people from Australia, Germany, Malaysia and America.  Or at least, they’d clicked on my link and had then been distracted or thought better of it. I dunno, like went out and ENJOYED THEIR LIVES.  I’ve never even been to Germany and someone was there reading my things. Things that I had typed into my computer with my very own fingers that I half hoped no one would read to save my embarrassment and half dreamed that someone like Jonathan Safran Foer had read it (eek) and asked me to be his protégé.  I am sounding like my mother. I digress.

What really got me was that my simple little thoughts were out in the universe now. My blog was like a tiny bit of space dust settled on a moon orbiting around a planet which is orbiting around a star which is part of the Andromeda Galaxy.  It’s what your peripherals have been observing for the past few minutes and it’s one of the most fucking beautiful things that I have ever seen. 

Andromeda is the closest spiral galaxy to our own- a mere 2.5 million light-years away. What of it, hey?  Bearing this in mind, it’s hurting towards us at a rate of 400 light-years every million years.  On a date around 4.5 billion years from now Andromeda will merge with the Milky Way, possibly destroying earth and most of what we know about our night sky. Not that the human race will still be plodding around on Earth by then but really, who couldn’t love something so powerful and foreboding?

I’m so sorry. I will stop with the tenuous analogies.

I feel like I am part of this beautiful entity now.  I’ve only recently started reading blogs and in the past few days I have laughed until my eyes watered and cried until I laughed at my own hopelessness. Now I have a blood nose. I should take that as a sign from the universe to shut the fuck up.

But hell, I love you bloggy people. Maybe not all of you, but enough to be overwhelmed by the mass of individuals that I have never met but feel like I could entrust my life to. This is what the twenty fuckin’ first century should be all about.

love
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