CAN. NOT. BE. BOTHERED. BLOGGING.

Ah, this was so much easier when we lived in Japan... to give you all little titbits of interesting. Now-a-days, it's a bit more of a struggle. But that said, it's still worthwhile to reflect on the journey, and to give those of you who don't want to play facebook an opportunity to follow the life and times of Em and Tom.

But I really can't be bothered going into too much detail, so I've decided to write some dot points.

Job

• Tom's got a job now. It's an admin support role. It pays well enough and it's for 6 months, so we're pretty stable.
• I finished my first contract/trial period for the Executive Assistant role. I'm now doing a 6 week contract as a Policy Officer in a different work unit of the same department. After I finish that, I'll go back to the Executive Assistant role. I'm feeling pretty blessed and happy, because I got to have the opportunity to do something more challenging, but I also get the security of going back to my old job. Life is good.
• That said, both Tom and I find our admin roles pretty annoying. People do not treat their admin support staff very well a lot of the time, and take the piss asking you to do things that they really shouldn't ask you to do.
• We both got through to the shortlist from the Victorian Public Service Graduate Intake Scheme. Very pleased with ourselves, and we hope to be employed full-time as a grad by next year. If not, it's back to the job hunt for me.

Thrall

• Mixing for Vermin to the Earth is completed. We're just waiting for Arts Victoria to get back to us about a grant we went for to help us pay for the mastering process. I hope we get the grant, because it will give us an opportunity to put together a very cool package for the next album, and get some new promo photos done and ask Janssen to make us another one of his awesome film clips. If we get the grant, we will be mastering in July. If we find out we didn't get the grant, we'll master sooner.
• We played a show at Bar Open. The show was OK, I suppose, but not one of our greatest. Just felt like the wrong vibe for us that evening. I think it might just be better if we kept our focus on doing one or two good shows rather than doing lots of shows.
• I have booked the venue for a Sydney show with Creeping and Erebus Enthroned. We're thinking of adding one other to the bill. It's going to be rad, and I'll start promoting it as heavily as I can as soon as I have the Melbourne show sorted out (which is proving to be a bit more difficult to sell our pulling power to potential venues).
• Black Jesus and Thrall show in Tassie at the Brisbane. Will announce that shortly too.
• We have some labels in mind for Vermin to the Earth. Shan't say too much, but it's going to be gooooooood!

Everything else

• When we drove back from Sydney after that 40ºc day, the car sprung an oil leak. I topped up the engine oil on the drive back. What I didn't realise was that it wasn't the oil wasn't coming from the engine. It was coming from the gearbox. The other day the car just fucked out and wouldn't go into gear. Had to get towed. Need a new gearbox now. Expensive times...
• I cut my arm on the edge of a mirror in the bathroom and had to have stitches. Don't worry, it's healed well, the stitches came out last week, and it was not near any nerves or major arteries or veins or anything. So, all in all, it was merely expensive. And just when I didn't need any more expenses.
• I bought Tom a dolphin swim for his birthday, because it was the most rare and unusual gift I could think of. I also got him the Hellhammer/Celtic Frost book "Only Death Is Real" because I'm a real nice wife.
• Tom got some new jeans and they look really good on him.

OK, can't be bothered writing more. Tune in next time for the continued adventures of T + E...

Uncertainty and certainty

I've not posted for some time now. I suppose it's the nature of where I've been at for the last couple of months. Day in, day out, day in, day out... even when there are things worth reporting, my heart has been in a bit of a low ebb. Just not feeling the joy. I miss Osaka a lot of the time, and I miss Tassie... Melbourne's been grinding me down a bit. 6 months in, it's almost time to find out how I really feel about being here.

So, the job I was offered just before Christmas came through (yay!), and I am now working as an Executive Assistant in the same government department as before. I guess they must like me. No end date means I can rely on my income being fairly stable (given that I'm paid by the hour and don't get paid on public holidays). It's good. I've applied for one permanent full-time job recently, but if I don't get it, I won't be too worried. We won't die.

But Tom's not been working much, and I've been having to pay double rent. It's a strain. And I've managed (though fiscal discipline) to pay off the credit card that got run up when neither of us were working over the Christmas break, but it's left me in a sort of pessimistic kind of mind-space. Working and not feeling like you get to enjoy the spoils is pretty depressing. On the weekends I have been having trouble even getting out of bed. Just feeling lethargic and negative.

I often think of the nature of place, and I wonder if I'll ever find a place where I will feel like I can thrive. Is Melbourne going to be that place? I'm not convinced.

So, things other than my refusal to move on weekends:

- Tom's been swimming and doing weights whilst job hunting and has whittled himself down to a very fine profile. I have been doing "trial offers" at a whole bunch of gyms. Annoys the hell out of the gym sales staff when they realise that they'll never be able to turn that into a full membership, but hey, you want to do a trial offer, you've got to expect some tyre kickers.

- We went to the zoo the other weekend. I saw lots of cool snakes and fishies and monkeys. I liked the lesser panda. However, whilst I was taking a photo of some giant tortoises having sex (funny!) a rather large insect landed on the hand that was holding the camera. And so I had a reaction to flick the insect off my hand, and accidentally threw my camera quite forcefully on to the pavement. The insect was unharmed. The camera, however, did not survive. Goodbye camera #3.

- We played at the Sydney Armageddon Festival.

It was rad.

We got pulled in when Arkheth were unable to play. We didn't get to be on the colourful poster I'm afraid. However, we got to meet some really interesting people, make some good connections for future shows and so on. Lots of people attended. It was a pretty big show. I didn't think we played especially well. The mix didn't seem to work very well for the first couple of songs, but the mixer got it toward the middle of the set and we thrashed it out well enough. We made enough money to cover our transport and still have $2.50 each at the end of the day. Which, considering we're independent musicians, is a fucking miracle.

Sydney fucking loves its black metal. Who would have thought?

Leigh flew to Melbourne on the Thursday night and we took turns driving up to Sydney on the Friday morning. We drove back on Sunday. The car's not been running as well as I would have liked it to. Annoying. On the Saturday during the day it was 40+ºC so we went snorkelling. I saw some cool urchins and little fishies and big fishies. It was great. If I lived in Sydney, I'd go to the beach all the time. Melbourne's not got enough beaches, and it sucks.

We're sort of unsure about being here - if the money's not coming in, it kind of defeats the purpose of living in Melbourne. Melbourne's got gigs to go to, and art to look at. Melbourne's got fashion and shopping and whatever. But if you've got no money then all of that means nothing. If you're not able to afford to go to the gigs, what's the point of living in a city that has gigs?

I think Tom and I want to live here for a few years, save some cash for a house and move back to Tasmania. I miss being able to live among the trees. I've been doing some sums to try and figure out just how much we can throw into our savings when we're both working again. See how it all goes, I suppose. If I live in a shack in the bush, at least I can enjoy the bush. And maybe get a dog. I'd really like to have a puppy.