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.
