Slipstream

Gonna put out the washing in a minute...

Gonna put out the washing in a minute...

We're leaving. Again. Thought I would have mastered the art by now. But no.

Had lunch yesterday with Sallie B. and just felt like I was a whirlwind. Came in the door, threw the furniture about a bit in a torrent of quick catch up, and bustled out again within 30 minutes. Had tea yesterday with Maddy, Mindy and Hol's. Again, did feel a bit like the quick in-and-out, take-no-prisoners, bank-robber-type interaction rather than visitor. Everything turns into a swirl of colour and motion, some of it feels kind of stiff.

Gonna put the washing out in a minute...

The last week of being in a place is so hard. You have so much to do, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE wants to catch up. People you haven't seen since Primary School come out of the wood work, acquaintances, avowed enemies, people you haven't even met, EVERYONE, I mean, EVERYONE. My sister suggested that maybe I should try just skipping town without telling anyone, but that would feel kind of cruel. But then again, catching up with people and being lame, tired and grumpy, is that any better?

Not sure.

OK, gonna put the washing out so I can actually explain how we got from there to here.

Right, washing out, next load on, where was I?

What happened was:

When we got back we said to people: "we don't plan to be here for long. We expect to move to Melbourne by September." Kerry and Dave (our repeat visitors in Japan and now good friends) had offered for us to crash at theirs when we moved over. However, their landlord had decided to start building something monstrous in their yard, so they decided they didn't want to live there anymore. So we suggested that we all go in on a share-house.

[I know, I know, shut up already... I haven't really enjoyed share-housing much in the past, but to get a foothold in a new town, I thought it'd be worth it, and who knows! It might be one of those terribly functional houses, like living with Emma and Adrian or something...]
Anyway, so Kerry and her sister Sarah (who will also be co-habiting with us) went house hunting. Found something they liked up in West Brun-ahs-wick. We popped in an application thinking "first application, probably won't be approved, but hey, you never try, you'll never know."

AND IT WAS APPROVED.

So then we were like: "Fuck! Better get cracking on the move, because otherwise we're paying rent on a house that we're not living in," and that's the kind of expense I can not afford.

So we called the removalist.

And the removalist took our stuff.

And we quit our jobs (effective tomorrow).

And we packed our car.

And on Monday we get on the boat.

While all of this has been going on, we've played a fairly big show with Psycroptic, Astriaal and Lacerta. It was a pretty good gig. I didn't feel that great about my performance. I was a bit sloppy, kinda overwhelmed by it all. We didn't get to sound-check (why is it always us that gets skipped in the soundcheck?) I mean, we brought the evil, but I would have liked to feel like I planted both of my feet in the landing a bit more, if you get my drift. Anyway, more people got to see us than at the gigs that we played before (metal shows are awesome) and there were quite a few people who came up and said "nice drums" so to all those people, hey, thanks... but I'm usually actually better than that!

Everything has a momentum about it at the moment. We're about to take off again (and after everyone was saying that the Hobart-gravity would catch us and we'd get stuck here again), the band has got some cool shows coming up (managed to wrangle that Zeni Geva support I've been angling for), and signed to Moribund (oh, yeah!), and we're finishing up these stupid jobs we've been stuck in Hobart (don't want to blow my own trumpet or anything, but I think I might be a touch overqualified for Admin Assistant/Reception roles). So over it. Ready for the next adventure. Cock the hammer, and... FIRE!

And so, here we are. Might vacuum the house now.

You can build so much momentum in your life, and you can feel so much inertia at times, and there was a moment there where maybe we might have not just packed up and left again. I mean, I love living in the bush, and I love the air down here. But I don't think I'm ready to admit defeat yet, and coming back to Tassie always feels a bit like back to square one. I didn't go all that way just to come back here! At least, not yet I haven't! Right now I feel like I'm being pulled out of here on the tide, caught in the slipstream of my own life. It's kinda cool, and kinda scary, but definitely feels like I'm getting some kind of direction happening here...