I can't sleep. I lie awake waiting for it to come, I run around all day trying to tire myself out, I breathe in, breathe out, can't sleep. So I stay up, watch a movie, read, mess around with computer. The activity stimulates my brain, so of course, I can't sleep.
My eyes are red, my body is sore, I can't focus on uni or work or you.
I can't sleep.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Monday, 6 April 2009
Why the Courthouse Hotel is the Mardi Gras of Pubs
It's an age old problem that when something is good, people find out that it's good and it inevitably becomes crap. A victim of its own success. This process can take the form of gentrification / wankification (think Paddington or The Bank Hotel) or, in the case of Mardi Gras and the Courthouse, it's simply a takeover by the hoardes.
The courthouse used to be a cosy, beer gardened place where one could find a table and chat with mates. Now, to find a table, you have to a) wait b) share or c) seek out the eastern suburbs bus-ins, sit a little too close to them and talk graphically about sex, making them feel uncomfortable / oddly arroused til they leave.
Bar queues take FOREVER and I have many a time had to contend with sleazy menfolk wishing me happy birthday and winking sleepily. Check the hair do and baggy jeans matey - do the math!
Speaking of hair dos, there is a poshifying straightifying element going on as the clientele moves from vinnies to vintage - a problem facing much of the Newtown area.
I like space, comfort and like-minded friendly folk. I don't like waiting around and I don't like sleaze.
Crowds, waiting and straight-sleaze also sum up my Mardi Gras experience this year. My friends and I saw more homophobia that night than we do in an average month of Newtown ghettodom. The mammoth parade is overpoliced, over-sponsored, and no longer a particularly pleasant experience for participants with gawking crowds full of tourists who sneer when you seek out a cheer.
Mardi Gras is like a family tradition for me and I have supported it longer than many. But next year, I think I'll have a subdued Mardi Gras in Newtown. Maybe with the hoardes lining Oxford St, I'll head to the Courty for a quiet beer.
The courthouse used to be a cosy, beer gardened place where one could find a table and chat with mates. Now, to find a table, you have to a) wait b) share or c) seek out the eastern suburbs bus-ins, sit a little too close to them and talk graphically about sex, making them feel uncomfortable / oddly arroused til they leave.
Bar queues take FOREVER and I have many a time had to contend with sleazy menfolk wishing me happy birthday and winking sleepily. Check the hair do and baggy jeans matey - do the math!
Speaking of hair dos, there is a poshifying straightifying element going on as the clientele moves from vinnies to vintage - a problem facing much of the Newtown area.
I like space, comfort and like-minded friendly folk. I don't like waiting around and I don't like sleaze.
Crowds, waiting and straight-sleaze also sum up my Mardi Gras experience this year. My friends and I saw more homophobia that night than we do in an average month of Newtown ghettodom. The mammoth parade is overpoliced, over-sponsored, and no longer a particularly pleasant experience for participants with gawking crowds full of tourists who sneer when you seek out a cheer.
Mardi Gras is like a family tradition for me and I have supported it longer than many. But next year, I think I'll have a subdued Mardi Gras in Newtown. Maybe with the hoardes lining Oxford St, I'll head to the Courty for a quiet beer.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
oooohhhh I Wanna Dance With Somebody
To Dance or Not to Dance....
I love dancing more than most things in the world. I would place dancing up there with eating, fucking, watching TV and swimming as my five favourite things to do. It saddens me deeply that my passion for dancing is sometimes misunderstood as skill...or the belief that I think that I HAVE skills.
I have no skills. My dancing takes the form of faux-krumping, bad-robot, jumping, bottom-wriggling mania. When my "friends" say they don't dance (we can't REALLY think of them as friends in this case) because they "can't" I feel like bitch-slapping them...in time with some super-fun, wicked beats. Teehee, I don't think I've ever used the phrase "wicked beats" before.
EVERYONE CAN DANCE. JUMP UP JUMP UP AND GET DOWN...etc etc.
I love dancing more than most things in the world. I would place dancing up there with eating, fucking, watching TV and swimming as my five favourite things to do. It saddens me deeply that my passion for dancing is sometimes misunderstood as skill...or the belief that I think that I HAVE skills.
I have no skills. My dancing takes the form of faux-krumping, bad-robot, jumping, bottom-wriggling mania. When my "friends" say they don't dance (we can't REALLY think of them as friends in this case) because they "can't" I feel like bitch-slapping them...in time with some super-fun, wicked beats. Teehee, I don't think I've ever used the phrase "wicked beats" before.
EVERYONE CAN DANCE. JUMP UP JUMP UP AND GET DOWN...etc etc.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Never Again
Our first soccer game is on Sunday. As in the first competitive game with another team of people who aren't (necessarily) lesbians so can't be distracted from my lack of ability by my charming charm and asymmetrical hair do.
I hadn't really thought about the First Game til today when an email full of sporting information came through and I wanted to hit the panic button. You see, I've been jollying around with soccer peeps about how I Don't Do Sports and I Hate This Stuff for weeks, but it's all been in laughter.
The Problem:
I REALLY DON'T DO SPORTS.
Not because I can't. I am competitive, reasonably strong, unfit but not the least fit in the world, I like team stuff and I have good hand/eye coordination (useless in soccer, but still worth mentioning). I don't do sports because they evoke the trauma of childhood obesity (which we just called being fat back then cos it wasn't an epidemic). Up until high school I was trundled through a number of sports in an attempt to get me into exercise.
The end result is that sports make me panic.
Doing sports in front of others makes me panic.
Especially if those others are more sporty than me.
Case Study: I love climbing trees. Once I locked a friend out of her apartment and came to save the day by climbing a tree onto her balcony, all nonchalant like I did that every day. This was possible because a) I like saving the day b) it was my fault so the least I could do c) my friend is less sporty than me so there was no pressure. Last week I went to the beach with Soccer Girl and I said I liked climbing and we went to climb a rope play equipment thing and she bounded up all tall and efficient and looked back to see what was taking me so long. Result: I panicked, slowed down and climbed gingerly up like I'd never climbed anything in my life.
Pressure = Failure.
Do you know what there will be on Sunday at the soccer match?
PRESSURE.
Sometimes I think my fat / body image / food neuroses are on the way out. Improvements include:
1. enjoying food without excessive guilt
2. being naked with the lights on
3. joining a soccer team
But then I think of the panics that still remain, and I wonder if I will ever NOT feel like the fat kid.
1. Panic at the thought of actually playing soccer
2. Panic every time I have to choose something on a menu (considerations: a) will people think I am ordering too much? b) will it be good enough? food = fat so if it is bad it is WASTED FAT)
3. Panic when choosing what to wear when going out, resulting in being an hour late, sitting on bed wanting to cry
Oh well. Baby steps.
I hadn't really thought about the First Game til today when an email full of sporting information came through and I wanted to hit the panic button. You see, I've been jollying around with soccer peeps about how I Don't Do Sports and I Hate This Stuff for weeks, but it's all been in laughter.
The Problem:
I REALLY DON'T DO SPORTS.
Not because I can't. I am competitive, reasonably strong, unfit but not the least fit in the world, I like team stuff and I have good hand/eye coordination (useless in soccer, but still worth mentioning). I don't do sports because they evoke the trauma of childhood obesity (which we just called being fat back then cos it wasn't an epidemic). Up until high school I was trundled through a number of sports in an attempt to get me into exercise.
The end result is that sports make me panic.
Doing sports in front of others makes me panic.
Especially if those others are more sporty than me.
Case Study: I love climbing trees. Once I locked a friend out of her apartment and came to save the day by climbing a tree onto her balcony, all nonchalant like I did that every day. This was possible because a) I like saving the day b) it was my fault so the least I could do c) my friend is less sporty than me so there was no pressure. Last week I went to the beach with Soccer Girl and I said I liked climbing and we went to climb a rope play equipment thing and she bounded up all tall and efficient and looked back to see what was taking me so long. Result: I panicked, slowed down and climbed gingerly up like I'd never climbed anything in my life.
Pressure = Failure.
Do you know what there will be on Sunday at the soccer match?
PRESSURE.
Sometimes I think my fat / body image / food neuroses are on the way out. Improvements include:
1. enjoying food without excessive guilt
2. being naked with the lights on
3. joining a soccer team
But then I think of the panics that still remain, and I wonder if I will ever NOT feel like the fat kid.
1. Panic at the thought of actually playing soccer
2. Panic every time I have to choose something on a menu (considerations: a) will people think I am ordering too much? b) will it be good enough? food = fat so if it is bad it is WASTED FAT)
3. Panic when choosing what to wear when going out, resulting in being an hour late, sitting on bed wanting to cry
Oh well. Baby steps.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
I've loved him for a long long time...
...I know this love is real.
He walked in to a standing ovation. That says it all really. But, with that much adoration, failure - or at least disappointment - could have been on the cards.
To be honest, what I expected from the Leonard Cohen concert Wednesday night was to bathe in the glory of sharing air space with my favourite musician (or at least my favourite lyricist.) But I thought, at his age, that maybe some of the musicality might have left his dulcet tones. Or that he'd be doing one of those token revival tours that can be a little lacklustre and depressing.
Not so, my friends, not so.
He was a delight.
"The last time I was here it was 15 years ago...I was 60...just a kid with a dream..."
He tipped his hat to our cheers and skipped off the stage. Hell, if I can still skip in my 70s I hope I'll get to do it in front of thousands of people.
I know I am not original in my passion nor am I new. But love him, I really really do.
It's the words that do it. He manages poetry in such an effortless way. Though I have heard that he works years sometimes on a song, his metaphors and imagery never seem laboured. Brilliant, rich lines ("and jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water") couple with simple statements like "there ain't no cure for love" or poetic nonsenses like "a thousand kisses deep." And he writes concept songs, not just simple storytelling or ditties imploring someone to love him - 'Everybody knows' and 'Repent' have IDEAS in them. His storytelling works too though with beautifully told narratives like 'The Partisan.'
and oh the wit - from "Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people you just had to meet...without your clothes" to "we are ugly but we have the music." He's so wry and divine.
and of course the random - "all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots, it's closing time."
oh, and when he does write a love song, as often he does, they always appeal directly to my unfortunately over-passionate, worryingly submissive attitude to romance. The devastation of unrequited love in 'ain't no cure for love,' the adoration of 'dance me to the end of love,' the mournful longing of 'hey, that's no way to say goodbye' and the sacrificial 'if it be your will' - all of them can make me weep with memory or hope or loss or passion.
and of course the eponymous heroine of Suzanne - I do heart the crazy ladies. (Butterfingers also summed this problem of mine up with the line "I like it when they're troubled," but they don't really compare, now do they?)
But my ultimate Leonard will always be 'I'm your man.' I don't actually think it's his best song, musically or lyrically...
But fuck, it's sexy.
It has all the abandon of submission and all the power of standing before someone and stating your case, almost demanding they love you back. It is superbly open and a little wild and singing it just makes me feel like a king.
The concert was amazing. Standing up with the 'Came so far for beauty' Cohen tribute concert of 2005 as one of my favourite gigs ever. This opera house spectacular was astoundingly good, especially for giving me Antony's 'If it be your will' and Martha Wainwright's 'Tower of Song.' These divine covers rival the originals and demonstrate the other wonderful quality of his songs which is that they are so adaptable. Easy to cover badly (Monsieur Camembert's soulless covers album comes to mind), but when done well (Clare Bowditch's 'Hallelujah' also a gem) they are songs renewed and re-examined - something that can well be done when the lyrics are able to be intepreted in so many ways.
I am not a fan, in the traditional, 'worship the individual' sense. I have never been into researching the personal lives of my favourite artists. I think when I know too much about them it detracts from my ability to claim the stories as my own, as soundtracks to events in my own life. I actually know little about him, or my other favourites and I think I'll probably keep it that way... I should admit that this also fits in with imagining that it is I, not them, who will be performing the songs. Can't get too attached tho those who we would like to kill in order to steal their lives (Camille the Dark Angel - look out! I am out for your blood!!)
But I just wanted to write this mini-fan-letter down. Make love official. Tie the fan knot etc etc. Anyway, I'll end there. Rant over. Love expressed. Joy shared, I hope.
Sincerely, M. Marsden.
He walked in to a standing ovation. That says it all really. But, with that much adoration, failure - or at least disappointment - could have been on the cards.
To be honest, what I expected from the Leonard Cohen concert Wednesday night was to bathe in the glory of sharing air space with my favourite musician (or at least my favourite lyricist.) But I thought, at his age, that maybe some of the musicality might have left his dulcet tones. Or that he'd be doing one of those token revival tours that can be a little lacklustre and depressing.
Not so, my friends, not so.
He was a delight.
"The last time I was here it was 15 years ago...I was 60...just a kid with a dream..."
He tipped his hat to our cheers and skipped off the stage. Hell, if I can still skip in my 70s I hope I'll get to do it in front of thousands of people.
I know I am not original in my passion nor am I new. But love him, I really really do.
It's the words that do it. He manages poetry in such an effortless way. Though I have heard that he works years sometimes on a song, his metaphors and imagery never seem laboured. Brilliant, rich lines ("and jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water") couple with simple statements like "there ain't no cure for love" or poetic nonsenses like "a thousand kisses deep." And he writes concept songs, not just simple storytelling or ditties imploring someone to love him - 'Everybody knows' and 'Repent' have IDEAS in them. His storytelling works too though with beautifully told narratives like 'The Partisan.'
and oh the wit - from "Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people you just had to meet...without your clothes" to "we are ugly but we have the music." He's so wry and divine.
and of course the random - "all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots, it's closing time."
oh, and when he does write a love song, as often he does, they always appeal directly to my unfortunately over-passionate, worryingly submissive attitude to romance. The devastation of unrequited love in 'ain't no cure for love,' the adoration of 'dance me to the end of love,' the mournful longing of 'hey, that's no way to say goodbye' and the sacrificial 'if it be your will' - all of them can make me weep with memory or hope or loss or passion.
and of course the eponymous heroine of Suzanne - I do heart the crazy ladies. (Butterfingers also summed this problem of mine up with the line "I like it when they're troubled," but they don't really compare, now do they?)
But my ultimate Leonard will always be 'I'm your man.' I don't actually think it's his best song, musically or lyrically...
But fuck, it's sexy.
It has all the abandon of submission and all the power of standing before someone and stating your case, almost demanding they love you back. It is superbly open and a little wild and singing it just makes me feel like a king.
The concert was amazing. Standing up with the 'Came so far for beauty' Cohen tribute concert of 2005 as one of my favourite gigs ever. This opera house spectacular was astoundingly good, especially for giving me Antony's 'If it be your will' and Martha Wainwright's 'Tower of Song.' These divine covers rival the originals and demonstrate the other wonderful quality of his songs which is that they are so adaptable. Easy to cover badly (Monsieur Camembert's soulless covers album comes to mind), but when done well (Clare Bowditch's 'Hallelujah' also a gem) they are songs renewed and re-examined - something that can well be done when the lyrics are able to be intepreted in so many ways.
I am not a fan, in the traditional, 'worship the individual' sense. I have never been into researching the personal lives of my favourite artists. I think when I know too much about them it detracts from my ability to claim the stories as my own, as soundtracks to events in my own life. I actually know little about him, or my other favourites and I think I'll probably keep it that way... I should admit that this also fits in with imagining that it is I, not them, who will be performing the songs. Can't get too attached tho those who we would like to kill in order to steal their lives (Camille the Dark Angel - look out! I am out for your blood!!)
But I just wanted to write this mini-fan-letter down. Make love official. Tie the fan knot etc etc. Anyway, I'll end there. Rant over. Love expressed. Joy shared, I hope.
Sincerely, M. Marsden.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
There's just something about Paris
I love it. It's a cliché. I like tacky tourism. I have romantic day dreams in which I am starring in an appalling coming-of-age drama with a stellar soundtrack. However, I have tried to avoid being absolutely cliché. But when it comes to Paris, I just can't help it.
This would be fine if I had well defined reasons for my love, but I don't. In fact, I have far more reasons to dislike Paris than I do to love it.
It is insanely busy, something that irritates me about London. It is not clean like Ljubljana or traffic-free like Amsterdam. It's not quaint like Edinburgh or as cool as Berlin. It lacks nature. And water, which is my favourite thing about Sydney. And it isn't varied. All the suburbs look the same.
The things that other people love about the clichéd Paris aren't qualities I seek out. All that alleged romance. When I sensed romance in Dubrovnik I ran, ran, ran from the cliffside cafe with its crashing waves and smoochy music. And the sophistication thing? All I see is people not wearing colour. All the brown and grey and black (I have only been to Paris in Winter, but I am sure they all wear monotone coats in summer as well.) I am not sophisticated, and being in Paris sometimes makes me feel like a clown.
NB: This is especially bad when couchsurfing with super-cool, tidy, classy french types who have a lovely appartment that you keeping wrecking. Sorry about the bed i broke* Anna...and the piece of tofu I lost behind the cupboard...oops I didn't tell you guys about that one...
* NB # 2: Did not fall on bed and break it in a passionate French way. Fell on it in a tripped over whilst picking up my backpack way. SO sophisticated right now.
So why like Paris? I do enjoy how easy it is to fit anything that happens there into the cultural stereotype built up for the place. Easy when the stereotype is pretty much anything goes. Any expression of individuality? Anything random? TOTES French right now. This is harder in, say, Germany where something disorganised is unGerman, or Scandinavia where wood that isn't blonde just isn't right. Cheery service in London, opinions in Switzerland, you get the picture. These countries have far more restrictive travel expectations.
But even though I am aware of this I still succumb to the romance of it all. The "ooooh I am in Paris." I suppose it's good marketing on Paris' behalf, having us all think it is the ultimate travel destination. Putting it in movies and books and such. I read The Flaneur before I arrived and so, (even though I'd been to Paris a few times in the past) I felt all excited like I was going somewhere really special.
It helps that I can communicate with people there. And that I have been fortunate to meet some lovely French people over the years. I guess it also helps that my first big, independant adventure was in France (exchange when I was 16) so I associate the city with that grown-up, big-world kind of sensation that became a permanent emotional state over the past 6 months.
So maybe, I am not being cliché. Maybe I love Paris for my own reasons. It doesn't stop me going "EEEE LOOK LOOK, THE EIFFEL TOWER!!!" though...I am still a dirty big tourist.
This would be fine if I had well defined reasons for my love, but I don't. In fact, I have far more reasons to dislike Paris than I do to love it.
It is insanely busy, something that irritates me about London. It is not clean like Ljubljana or traffic-free like Amsterdam. It's not quaint like Edinburgh or as cool as Berlin. It lacks nature. And water, which is my favourite thing about Sydney. And it isn't varied. All the suburbs look the same.
The things that other people love about the clichéd Paris aren't qualities I seek out. All that alleged romance. When I sensed romance in Dubrovnik I ran, ran, ran from the cliffside cafe with its crashing waves and smoochy music. And the sophistication thing? All I see is people not wearing colour. All the brown and grey and black (I have only been to Paris in Winter, but I am sure they all wear monotone coats in summer as well.) I am not sophisticated, and being in Paris sometimes makes me feel like a clown.
NB: This is especially bad when couchsurfing with super-cool, tidy, classy french types who have a lovely appartment that you keeping wrecking. Sorry about the bed i broke* Anna...and the piece of tofu I lost behind the cupboard...oops I didn't tell you guys about that one...
* NB # 2: Did not fall on bed and break it in a passionate French way. Fell on it in a tripped over whilst picking up my backpack way. SO sophisticated right now.
So why like Paris? I do enjoy how easy it is to fit anything that happens there into the cultural stereotype built up for the place. Easy when the stereotype is pretty much anything goes. Any expression of individuality? Anything random? TOTES French right now. This is harder in, say, Germany where something disorganised is unGerman, or Scandinavia where wood that isn't blonde just isn't right. Cheery service in London, opinions in Switzerland, you get the picture. These countries have far more restrictive travel expectations.
But even though I am aware of this I still succumb to the romance of it all. The "ooooh I am in Paris." I suppose it's good marketing on Paris' behalf, having us all think it is the ultimate travel destination. Putting it in movies and books and such. I read The Flaneur before I arrived and so, (even though I'd been to Paris a few times in the past) I felt all excited like I was going somewhere really special.
It helps that I can communicate with people there. And that I have been fortunate to meet some lovely French people over the years. I guess it also helps that my first big, independant adventure was in France (exchange when I was 16) so I associate the city with that grown-up, big-world kind of sensation that became a permanent emotional state over the past 6 months.
So maybe, I am not being cliché. Maybe I love Paris for my own reasons. It doesn't stop me going "EEEE LOOK LOOK, THE EIFFEL TOWER!!!" though...I am still a dirty big tourist.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
bored now
Time goes differently here. A week has passed since I got home and I feel like I've done nothing. Where is the learning folks? Where are the new people to meet? I promised myself I would live Sydney like it was Europe and see new places, do new things. But my old habits are, well, habitual... Hmm, Maeve use words good.
I didn't think I'd get travel hangover. I was so ready to come home.
So here I am and the heat is blending into my boredom. My friend whimpered like a little girl today cos the heat was so bad. I made whingy noises then hot-footed it (scuse pun) to the beach.
I saw a woman at the ladies pool whose nipples were getting sunburnt. Is this what we have become? People who purposefully burn their nipples? Imagine if they peeled! I wanted to take her aside and say, 'Lady, you are burning your nipples!' But I didn't want her to think I was a sleaze.
There was also lettuce floating in the water and a film of oily matter on the surface. I think it was sunscreen. Laura and I decided that this meant if we were under the water we wouldn't get burnt. Ah, science, you have always eluded me.
Randwick Council has cut down a lot of the shrubbery that used to protect the ladies pool from the prying eyes of leisurely walkers strolling along the path nearby. Now anyone can see the topless lesbians, nice old nannas and awkward teenagers splashing about in single-sex glee. This makes me mad. Maybe some old man was also looking down and thinking 'Lady, you are burning your nipples!'
Life: you are disappointing.
I am, however, thankful that green grapes are in season and enjoy eating them crispy fresh from the fridge.
I didn't think I'd get travel hangover. I was so ready to come home.
So here I am and the heat is blending into my boredom. My friend whimpered like a little girl today cos the heat was so bad. I made whingy noises then hot-footed it (scuse pun) to the beach.
I saw a woman at the ladies pool whose nipples were getting sunburnt. Is this what we have become? People who purposefully burn their nipples? Imagine if they peeled! I wanted to take her aside and say, 'Lady, you are burning your nipples!' But I didn't want her to think I was a sleaze.
There was also lettuce floating in the water and a film of oily matter on the surface. I think it was sunscreen. Laura and I decided that this meant if we were under the water we wouldn't get burnt. Ah, science, you have always eluded me.
Randwick Council has cut down a lot of the shrubbery that used to protect the ladies pool from the prying eyes of leisurely walkers strolling along the path nearby. Now anyone can see the topless lesbians, nice old nannas and awkward teenagers splashing about in single-sex glee. This makes me mad. Maybe some old man was also looking down and thinking 'Lady, you are burning your nipples!'
Life: you are disappointing.
I am, however, thankful that green grapes are in season and enjoy eating them crispy fresh from the fridge.
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