Darling, Forgive Me

I’m in love.

With Listen to Little Red by Little Red. It’s deliciously good.
They’re the poppy kind of goodness that I’m dying to see live (and I hopefully will be able to in August. Twice, but at least once when they play with Vampire Weekend). I’ve heard good things, oh yes.
I don’t know what happened, I just decided to buy some Melbourne music when I was actually in Melbourne, and they’re just what I need, I think.

I also just finished Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex which is the kind of coming of age story about a hermaphrodite, and the incestuous family history that created both Calliope and Cal that you never realised that you had to read. But you do.
The Virgin Suicides is his first novel, and it’s always been one of my favourites. His second won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and unsurprisingly doesn’t disappoint.

Here’s The Punchline.

You know? The line where you punch?

See you in Melbourne tomorrow.

Abby is awesome. There is much more room in her bag now. I looked, so I know.

Let It Never Be Said That Romance Is Dead

‘Cause There’s So Little Else Occupying My Head.

I’ve always thought that heartache was a misnomer.
How can you feel your heart shatter into pieces? Surely you’d be completely incapacitated?
The expectation of some aching point in your chest is sorely rebuffed when you realise that you’ve had more palpitations after an over indulgence of caffeine.

Wikipedia agrees. I searched heartache and it told me that I was being ambiguous (though, I have to admit that that’s not an incredibly novel concept).
Did I mean a Bonnie Tyler song or album? A short story by Anton Chekhov?
Love sickness? That was closer, I guess.

Historians knew it as a mental disorder, but Disney has conditioned us to rejoice in the semi-ridiculous state of ‘twitterpation’.
It has it’s symptoms; it’s mania, depression, serotonin levels dropping to the same as someone suffering from OCD (or, more kindly, CDO) and the psychological creation of physical symptoms.

It’s the physical symptoms that give you something to ponder.
It’s the Romanticism of romance, and the whole notion of affection.

Why does it all have to be considered, though, matters of the heart?
As an organ it resembles less the bright red sentiments on your Valentine Hallmarks, and more a strangled and bloody piece of fruit that you’re not likely to be tempted by.
I just don’t understand why it’s the symbol of humanity’s greatest ambition.

It’s like the difference between Sense & Sensibility and the Great Gatsby.
Sure, there are the fleeting pleasures of romantic ambition, but it’s in the Realism that you find the true beauty of tragedy. Where’s the sense in twitterpation when Gatsby’s corpse is left drifting across the shallow waters?
I just mean that maybe love isn’t supposed to be the formulated process of a sickness like the term ‘heartache’ would have you believe.
It’s what makes the world keep going, and it keeps people doing what they’re doing, but what is it?
Maybe, maybe you’re just not supposed to be able to understand.

I can’t disagree with the thought that it has physical symptoms, I just don’t think that they are rooted within your chest cavity.
I know the dull thud of ache that twists your insides like a long lost memory. It ties itself to your throat and slowly seeps down to that place in your stomach that you can’t ever quite discern.
I was seventeen, the same seventeen where Janis Ian said I’d learn the truth, and I realised that the oscillations of my gut reaction were the strains of confusion.
I’ve had the same thuds when memories decide to make themselves known, and it feels like they’re taunting me with their intangibility.
It’s like missing something with the anxious questions of whether or not it’s ever coming back.

Does that make me crazy? Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe you’re supposed to be.

What I’m trying to say, what I’m trying to say without having to say that I love you, is that love isn’t supposed to be straightforward. You’re not meant to follow through with your checklist, you’re not supposed to trace your path down the map.
You’re supposed to be confused, you’re supposed to question the point, and you’re supposed to ache, just not necessarily where they say.

Things don’t have to look like the story books you grew up with, it’s just meant to make you feel something.

I just want to feel the pain of a broken heart, just to let me know that I can fall apart.

You know the feeling, you’re desperate for it to stop, and you just don’t want to keep on keeping on when you feel like it’s tearing your mind into two. The thing is that when it stops, what’s left?

And Carly? It’s not about you, it’s not always about you. Sometimes you just help me gather my thoughts.

Oh And It’s Oh So Tawdry When You Put It To Bed

A Confession.

I lied to you, but I don’t know why.
It wasn’t to make you feel better or worse.
It wasn’t a big lie, it was almost indifferent.
I don’t think you’d care, but I care.
I don’t know why, and that’s where I am stumped.

Where is Freud when you need him? Jung?
Dr Phil even? Argh.

 

Still, did you guess?

You’re Giving Me The Chills

Since I decided to chronicle my every whim online there’s probably no hiding from the fact that I had a month or so of miserable moping at the start of this year.
To say that I was a wee bit pathetic is perhaps a wee bit of an understatement, and I will be eternally grateful for the fact that none of you ever saw me then.
Unfortunately it coincided with both of my brother’s birthdays, so my mood is forever captured in the awkward contractions of my lips.
You can almost hear my mother behind the lens: “For God’s sake, Lizzie! Just PRETEND to be happy.”

To be perfectly honest, the whole episode was a bit embarrassing. I seem to remember breaking down into tears on a bus, on a train, on a ferry, in a bar, watching the Wedding Singer &tc. &tc
I’m not going to lie, there was a pretty big, 6 ft or so reason for falling into that kind of funk, but I think that it spiraled into something else.

For this entire expanse of time I wasn’t listening to any of my favourite music.
How depressing!

Now, though, I couldn’t even fathom that kind of lyrical isolation and I’m not planning on letting anyone push me back into it, but from all of this came a wise man, and a wise question, and an electronic franchise with low, low prices.
It was JB Hi Fi Guy and he asked me something wonderful.
“If your life was a movie, what are the five songs on the soundtrack?”

I know, I know, I know, I’ve done this all before (I’d link it, but I don’t even want to know how obsessive I got). I’m probably not even going to bring in anything new (hopefully, though, it will be more sane), but I was watching a (terrible) movie, and I started wondering what life would actually be with a soundtrack.

It’s not like it would be a completely foreign concept, your overactive imagination tends to forewarn you of things, just like Shakespeare. The surreal remains surreal with or without a backing track (like last Sunday? Surreal. Beyond real), and your feminine wiles tend to give you some kind of inkling of the future already.

It’s just, you know, when this is partnered, emphasised, and complemented by music I think that you’ve found my perfect world (or, at least, near perfect. My perfect world also has a distinct lack of shopping trolleys).

I managed to finalise my five through Last.Fm tags.
They are Belle & Sebastian’s “I’m A Cuckoo” (for pretty obvious, sentimental reasons, I guess), the Strokes’s “Someday” (because my ex says I’m lacking in depth), Vampire Weekend’s “Oxford Comma” (hello! Grammar and African drum beats? Except, even now I’m not sure, and I actually love “Campus” more), the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” (because I totally get the eye freckle thing) and the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” (because it’s just so pretty).

So, yay music. Except, so what?

What kind of soundtrack exists as a mere splatter of songs?

JB Hi Fi Guy, you made me remember my dreams, but I forgot to make them my own. Or whatever.

What I mean by all of this is that a soundtrack (one that isn’t from the spontaneous existence of my perfect world) needs rules.

Firstly, it needs some kind of order. Except, what order?

Chronological?
(JLH, S, SGH, IAC, OC)

In the progression of a relationship?
(SGH, OC, JLH, S, IAC)

Suggestions? I don’t know, my revelation only got me so far as to recognise the need for regulations, not actually the regulations themselves.

Once I work out the pattern, I’ll work on the subheadings, and placing them in a movie that would be my life. (Subheadings are the clearest indication of a clear mind, after all)

I think that everyone deserves a soundtrack.
Just, be careful before you make it known.
It’s like a letter, don’t create it when you’re angry, sad, distressed, &tc. &tc.

See, maybe if you’re not careful you’ll end up with an angry (well, as angry as Stuart Murdoch will ever sound) break up song in the short list you devised to describe your inner workings (how embarrassing).

Anyway, I’m off to ponder.x

I Feel Every Second Is A Lifetime Long

Letters are the kind of musings that you write for yourself, even if you’re going to give them away.

I don’t ever seem to understand how they’ve made someone else feel, but that’s probably the reason I only wrote the letter in the first place. I could have been less weak about the whole business.

There’s something so real about the inky stains left behind by the curling words on note paper, something that seems lost when the quick pattering of typing takes over everything.

I write so many letters, and I’m beginning to feel like they’re best when not actually read by their intended readers.  The satisfaction comes from the pouring of words onto paper, not necessarily from the perusal of them by someone that probably still won’t understand.
Maybe, though, I am being slightly naive.

I feel better after writing another ridiculous diatribe, or desperate plea, or crazy rambling to someone, and maybe that’s the only thing that’s ever going to be acheived.

You’re not supposed to write a letter angry, but neither should you be happy, sad, scared, frantic, inebriated lest your reader should discern something that isn’t there.
That having been said, you’re forced to question whether you should write a letter at all.
How can you be so without emotion?

What I’m trying to say, you know, is that I wrote a letter, and I’m not sure where to go now.
What I’m hoping that I realise is that none of it actually matters.

Take Off That Dress, You Won’t Freeze

Although, more likely in this kind of weather you will.
And you’re probably still a tease.

On a more sombre note than my last post, perhaps, Badde Manors has had a fire.
OH NO!

Not some crazy Nandos explosion, though, but enough of a mishap to warrant a note on the window to alert would be patrons to its closure.

Chris: Oh, it’s probably shut because there’s no pedestrian access. Look at all of this fencing, how does anyone get in?
Lizzie: That’s not even the entrance, that’s not why it’s closed. I don’t know why, but it’s not pedestrian access issues.
Chris: No, look! Look at all the fencing, there isn’t a way for anyone to get inside. That’s why it’s closed.
Lizzie: No, Dad, that’s not why. That’s not the door. Trust me, people can get inside. It’s just oddly closed.
Chris: I used to come to Badde Manors when I was at University, I know. It’s closed because of all the construction. Look, it’s all blocked off.
Lizzie: Okay. Sure. Okay.
*Chris reads sign*
Chris: Oh, look. There was just some kind of fire. That’s why it’s closed.
Lizzie: ….

So, in the end, it’s only actually closed for a few days, and I don’t even go there regularly enough to know that the few days won’t be ending tomorrow.
I was just kind of upset.
I kind of wanted a brownie.
Or even, four small pieces of one.

Tomorrow is Sunday, oh blissful Sunday (even if it’s poisoned by the looming Monday morning).
I’ve been half asleep for hours, and the only thought that I’ve managed to maintain is the desperate craving for a late-lunch breakfast.
I can see the eggs now. Mmmm.

Now all I have to do is find someone to come with me…so…so like, not necessarily going to happen :P.

Something Is Rotten In The State Of Denmark

So, today I went to Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Sydney Opera House.

Loved it.

I love Shakespeare, and I love Bell Shakespeare productions with their unpretentious, and beautiful performances.

I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to it, mostly because I meant to go to Newcastle this weekend, and when I realised that it was happening today and not somewhere in the distant future it meant that I’d be home for just a night or two (again).
Then I was perusing the Sydney Morning Herald arts section, and I realised that Brendan Cowell was Hamlet.
This isn’t really surprising, and it’s probably been in the back of my head for months, but when I consciously recognised the fact I was delighted.

He’s the guy that you might know from shows like Life Support, or Love My Way (for those with cable), and even an independent Australian movie (Noise, awesome) but he should be in so much more. I think he’s this amazing actor, and clearly whoever cast the play agreed, given that Hamlet is largely considered the greatest challenge to any actor.
Anyway, that was an exciting turning point.

I saw him stalking towards the theatre when we were outside getting drinks, but he might as well have been dressed in rags. No one believed me.

Then we escaped the biting cold and were waiting inside the foyer when I noticed Sarah Blasko’s face peering out from the display.
Turns out that she did the compositions for the production. Although this was pretty cool, I wasn’t that excited, I mean, it’s not like they generally have lots of music in a Shakespearian tragedy, right?

We sat down, the lights dimmed, and the haunting aria from Sarah Blasko began.
My heart’s ear let out a sigh of happiness. Or something.

Hamlet is always one of those plays that I don’t tend to bother with. It’s over hyped, over cliched, and whatever else you care to call it.
It surprised me, though, although in retrospect it shouldn’t have. I really enjoyed it.

Maybe, though, not to the same degree as Othello, with the disturbing Iago always one cunning step ahead, but at the same time, I didn’t study Hamlet to the same degree. So much of the prose went right over my head, but it didn’t matter.
I wish I had become more intimate with the play first, but despite that I thoroughly enjoyed the entire episode.

I don’t think that I’ll delve particularly deeply into the minute details of the play, but it’s suffice to say that I definitely recommend seeing it (although, I’m not sure you’d be able to get tickets to the Sydney production).

The ghost, though, was perfectly manifested.
There was a trough of water on the right of the stage, up against a stone-ish looking wall.
Hamlet stared down the audience and spoke with the apparition as it floated through the water, shrouded in the stage’s only lighting.
Ugh, maybe you have to see it to believe it, but it was inspired.

What can I say, but I love Shakespeare, and this kind of portrayal of the Bard only makes me want to say it more.

I went with my Dad, my little brother, my dad’s (incredibly vague) girlfriend, and my uncle Dr Jerry (Germy).
Afterwards we went to the Fair Trade Cafe on Glebe Point Road. It was good, we didn’t really eat, though.

It’s the kind of Banana Smoothie, though, that I’ve been craving since I moved to Sydney without a blender (or Magic Bullet, even). Perfect. Honey, yoghurt, banana…why did it take so long to get right?

I spent the entire time thinking, though, that if I lived around there I’d be home by now (well, then, since now I am actually ‘home’). Yess. Soon, maybe.

On a strange side note, though, every time Hamlet referred to his Uncle Father, and Aunt Mother, I just thought of Buster Bluth and his Uncle Dad Oscar and Dad Uncle George.
Or something.

<3

Oh, Lisa, Don’t Be Scared, You’ve Got Nothing To Lose

I have been listening to Oh No! Oh My! today, and although I’m usually a little scared by excessive use of punctuation, I quite like them.

I’m listening to them because Last.Fm Beta recommended them to me, and although I usually ignore their recommendations, I was impressed by the way it linked to other artists that sound like them, and that I have already listened to.

Their artist profile page said that they sounded like Belle and Sebastian, which was a pretty big reason to start listening, but now I’m not so sure that I’d agree.
They’re still quite nice for a lazy, albeit chilly afternoon.

I guess, though, that since they introduced the sexually repressed Lisa in their song “Lisa Make Love! (It’s Okay!), linking them to Belle and Sebastian might not be such a stretch.

With delightful titles like “Jane Is Fat”, and a scary number of exclamation marks how could you look past them?

I don’t think I’m very good at music reviews because I get distracted by everything else, and this isn’t really supposed to be one anyway, but I really quite like them. Their song “Walk In The Park” is eerily familiar, and I know that I’ve heard it somewhere, even if I can’t place it.
I like them.

I could say something more, but I guess I can’t really qualify why I like them any further.
They remind me of Boy Least Likely, and of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, even.

They’re quite indiepopish, and not necessarily genius, but still make for a heavenly chill outish kind of experience.
So, even if I fail at reviewing them, at least take this as a recommendation. Do it.x

The Ice Is Getting Thinner.

Dreams are the kind of illusion that you want to stay shrouded in.
Whenever I’m entangled in a perfect dream I keep questioning whether or not it could even be real.
As much as I try to convince myself that it is, I really know that it’s not.

I always wake up a little bit more bittersweet.

Sometimes, the very things you’re dreaming seem to manifest, but you’re plagued by the same questions.
You’re still left kind of melancholy.
Worst defense mechanism ever.
Sleep sweetly, and never wake up