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Feb. 1st, 2010 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikIt is a neverending source of bafflement to me, these days, the way my life lines up in flowers for the theoretical social butterfly inhabiting my incidental position in the space-time continuum. I spent a good deal of time as That Kid who reads in the library at lunch time - in fact, true story, one of my teachers had to gently remind me that I had a library card in order to convince me, grumbling, to read the book under a tree in the park instead1. Then I graduated to spending lunchtimes in a computer room, in the general vicinity of some other kids who could loosely be termed friends because we congratulated each other on our high scores in Icy Tower and mutually complained about Geography assignments.
Somehow something I always thought of as popularity snuck up on me. Somehow I do things on weekends, now, and text message people, and lend them clothing or leave clothing at their house by accident and tell them get it back to me next time I see them. Somehow multiple people want me at multiple events in multiple places at the same time with disturbing regularity. My cup, literally, runneth over. Part of me still doesn't believe it.
And so two things: One! I am always pretty cheerful about having to maneouvre around double-bookings in my social calendar because I have double bookings in my social calendar wth :D srsly. And two! I am kind of bad at saying no to people. I want to do EVERYTHING. I want to go to things just because people ask me. I'm still not very good at reciprocating, you know, despite having evidence that people like me in them asking me to spend time with them I can never quite convince myself that they like me enough for me to ask them to spend time with me. So I want to take allllll of the opportunities to spend time with people without having to flog my brain into invitation gear - it is just less stressful.
All of which is an exceedingly lengthy lead-in to explain why I spent most of last night in transit between Newtown and Annandale, trying very hard to be in two places at once.
The first place was a folk punk/psychobilly/idk something minifestival at the Annandale hotel, with free BBQ. Alex had given me some Like...Alaska mp3's, which I liked a lot (punk with female vocalists win!) and they were to be playing, along with some other bands whose myspaces I had checked out and enjoyed, and Alex is always a good time provided you are willing to ignore approximately 30% of his end of the conversation because it is a sprawling tangent on the topic of Billy Bragg or NSW state politics or something and is totally unrelated to whatever you were just talking about. (I honestly do not know what he was doing at the Drama camp I met him on, everybody else was wearing berets and talking about NIDA and he was busy growing his hair out and talking really fast about Warhammer.)
The second place was a series of bars to be patronised on the occasion of Alice's 21st birthday. Alice actually went to my high school, but was not one of those few in the grade above whom I spent any time with outside of school (mostly because she is not Russian) and is now my friend by virtue of being sexually-ambiguous beffies with Melissa, who was in my grade and became a good friend of mine thanks to her yaoi manga collection, our ineffectual math teachers and her hilarious crush on one of my computer-room buddies.
Now that I've set the scene for those of you playing along at home2: Saturday. The gig nominally starts at one pm, and despite having stayed up till three the night before in my excitement at finally being able to see the top of my desk, I inexplicably showed up more or less on time - i.e. when the first band was still thinking about considering setting up their gear. Had I been thinking clearly I would have anticipated this eventuality, but I was too busy trying to figure out a game plan for the evening. I was skipping the karaoke portion of Alice's birthday party for the gig, and at some point in the evening she would ring me and let me know they were migrating to Newtown to drink lots of alcohol. I had wanted to meet up with her before I went to the gig as I was going to lend her an awesome belt to go with the awesome dress Melissa gave her, but that did not happen.
So I got to the Annandale, got my wrist stamped and hung out with Alex while bands set up. This mostly involved me bitching about not getting enough sleep, until I got some tea from McDonalds, into which I tipped some vodka from my (still awesome!) stainless steel hipflask. The main event consisted of a longish room with a stage at either end, so that bands could alternate and waste less time in between setting up. One stage was raised and had marginally less shitty speakers. The first band started out on the lower stage.
"Did you bring earplugs?" said Alex.
"What?" I said.
"DID YOU BRING-" he gave up and mimed inserting something into his ears.
"GRMHRGHRH!" said the lead singer.
"That would have been a good idea, huh," I mumbled inaudibly.
After a song or two we wandered outside, where a bloke with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica was singing about a girl that didn't understand him. It turned out several members of bands that were playing on the main stages were also doing acoustic gigs in the alley next to the pub. This was much more melodic but also infinitely less air-conditioned. I busted out my stylish black hand-fan and waved it at my face in time to the music.
When he was done we headed inside to listen to a few more eardrum-splitting bands. The one on the raised stage made me pretty happy because their sound system was at least configured for bass. A pounding rhythm makes up for a lot (hur hur, that's what she said) and this one was reverberating right through my ribcage, which is just how I like'em. I snuck some more vodka in the bathroom and wondered when the promised barbecue was going to show. I also ran into Christian, a dude I met at a Zombie Lurch years ago and had run into at some gigs and Writers' Society things4. He confided that he was sick of the "indie scene" and was trying to get into more punk. I snickered a bit.
The next acoustic set5 was Jen Buxton from Like...Alaska, who was lovely and adorable and talented and got derailed by passing airplanes. She is my age! I feel like an underachiever. (I just googled her to check that data and found her twitter. Oh the internet.) During that set some dudes came out and got the barbecue started, and I ate two sausages and was happy. All the randoms at that gig were really friendly, incidentally. Then the guy from Frenzal Rhomb did an acoustic set which largely consisted of songs about necrophilia and crack addicts selling babies. He was hilarious.
By this point I was getting a bit worried about whether I'd get to see Like...Alaska or A Death In The Family before I had to go to Newtown. Not that I wasn't amused by cheerful dudebros Los Capitanos and their trumpets - apparently a classic feature of third-wave ska is a brass section - but that was not worth thirty dollars!
Another classic feature of third-wave ska, incidentally, turns out to be a type of mosh-pit dance where everybody runs around in a circle, flailing their limbs about. I discovered this when one broke out around me - what had been a normal stationary mosh, abruptly and much to my puzzled terror, became what was basically a human blender. I grabbed hold of someone's bag and hung on till I reached the edge, where I subsequently stood and boggled at it. Alex seemed to be having fun in the thick of things, but he is approximately twice my height and, apparently, a fan of this sort of thing :P
Shortly after this I got Alice's text message and went off to Newtown, which was about twenty minutes away by two buses, hoping vaguely that I could at least relocate that party to the Annandale so that I would not miss too much of the rest of the gig. I nearly got run over crossing the road, probably because my ears were still ringing and the sudden and inexplicable ska dancing had rattled me some. I found Alice awkwardly hanging out with her ex-boyfriend and some people I didn't know at Kelly's pub, gave her the belt and recieved in exchange a baffling yet oddly sexy nuzzle, and sat around watching the pool game for a while.
My belt-bearing duties had been discharged, and the rest of the party had apparently not arrived yet, so I hatched a CUNNING PLAN whereby I would return to Annandale, watch Like...Alaska play, and then go back to Newtown again. Needless to say this plan was entirely dependant on the green weekly travelpass my mum had lent me for the night!
So I hopped back on the bus to Annandale, passing the time with the Breakout game on my phone - the only one of the six listed games which actually works, and is not instead a "demo" which asks you to buy it after ninety seconds of play. So engrossed in this game was I that I looked up to find I was in Annandale, and not entirely sure how many stops till the pub. However, several landmarks looked familiar, so I assumed it was yet to come.
When the bus turned into a street marked "LEICHHARDT PLAZA THIS WAY" I realised that I had in fact passed the Annandale Hotel while playing Breakout, and the reason the ladnmarks looked familiar was that I'd seen them on my way tomishka_jayne's house. WHOOPS.
Like...Alaska was due to start their set right about... NOW, which pissed me off immensely because it meant I'd timed my trip perfectly. You know, assuming I did not FAIL BUSES.
And there wasn't another one back in the right direction for twenty minutes.
So... I jogged from Leichhardt to Annandale.
I actually got there, sweaty and appallingly sober, in time for their last two songs! They were pretty good despite the buzzy mics, and their drummer turned out to be adorably enthusiastic, pummelling her kit and mouthing along to the words. After that, though, I collapsed on a couch and grumbled as Alex attempted to convince me to stay until ADITF. After all that though, the last thing I was in the mood for was jumping up and down, nevermind making excuses for the Annandale's shitty, shitty sound system.
So I trooped on back to Newtown, where the gang were all set up on the rooftop of Kuleto's. I grabbed some take-out noodles and arrived just in time for Sam, David and a very drunk Melissa to make hilarious speeches, following which I got more or less sloshed and chatted with Alice's d'n'd friends. Later we tried unsuccessfully to find a gelato place that was open, and ended up in Maxxx Black.
As you might be able to tell from the name, Maxxx Black is not a gelato place. It is a sex shop. (Well-known as a fairly good, female friendly one, too.) So Alice and Sam picked out their matching vibrators while the rest of us wandered around examining the merchandise. I was amused (and intrigued) to find they had a "bargain BDSM" section - hopefully not second-hand, but quite reasonably priced.
ANYWAY.
(It is now 2:36 am and I feel like this post is getting progressively more incoherent. I don't know why I do all my blogging after midnight these days. Perhaps it is down to the depth of my procrastination.)
We ended up spending the last hour or two of the night sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a Nightride bus in vain, firstly because we were at the wrong bus stop and secondly because the one that DID stop where we were waiting sort of... decided not to, for reasons know only to the driver.
But waiting at a bus stop in good company is not that different from sitting around in a grimy fast food joint in good company. And taking >eight buses (and ~five blocks of jogging) in one night is something I can be cheerful about. All things considered.
1 Not ENTIRELY true, I did actually use my library card frequently.
2 By which I mean, not part of the live-action Days Of Our Maggie cast3
3 I feel like the soapie of my life should have a name more suited to me, but Glee was taken. Any suggestions? On the other hand, Days Of Our Maggie does abbreviate to DOOM...
4 He was not actually a member of the UTS Writers' Society, he didn't even go here, but he knew our president and we ended up at a few of the same poetry readings.
5 Or possibly not right next, I don't remember the order of things too well and somewhere in there was another guy half of whose set I skipped because too many people were smoking outside and my fan was not helping enough.
Somehow something I always thought of as popularity snuck up on me. Somehow I do things on weekends, now, and text message people, and lend them clothing or leave clothing at their house by accident and tell them get it back to me next time I see them. Somehow multiple people want me at multiple events in multiple places at the same time with disturbing regularity. My cup, literally, runneth over. Part of me still doesn't believe it.
And so two things: One! I am always pretty cheerful about having to maneouvre around double-bookings in my social calendar because I have double bookings in my social calendar wth :D srsly. And two! I am kind of bad at saying no to people. I want to do EVERYTHING. I want to go to things just because people ask me. I'm still not very good at reciprocating, you know, despite having evidence that people like me in them asking me to spend time with them I can never quite convince myself that they like me enough for me to ask them to spend time with me. So I want to take allllll of the opportunities to spend time with people without having to flog my brain into invitation gear - it is just less stressful.
All of which is an exceedingly lengthy lead-in to explain why I spent most of last night in transit between Newtown and Annandale, trying very hard to be in two places at once.
The first place was a folk punk/psychobilly/idk something minifestival at the Annandale hotel, with free BBQ. Alex had given me some Like...Alaska mp3's, which I liked a lot (punk with female vocalists win!) and they were to be playing, along with some other bands whose myspaces I had checked out and enjoyed, and Alex is always a good time provided you are willing to ignore approximately 30% of his end of the conversation because it is a sprawling tangent on the topic of Billy Bragg or NSW state politics or something and is totally unrelated to whatever you were just talking about. (I honestly do not know what he was doing at the Drama camp I met him on, everybody else was wearing berets and talking about NIDA and he was busy growing his hair out and talking really fast about Warhammer.)
The second place was a series of bars to be patronised on the occasion of Alice's 21st birthday. Alice actually went to my high school, but was not one of those few in the grade above whom I spent any time with outside of school (mostly because she is not Russian) and is now my friend by virtue of being sexually-ambiguous beffies with Melissa, who was in my grade and became a good friend of mine thanks to her yaoi manga collection, our ineffectual math teachers and her hilarious crush on one of my computer-room buddies.
Now that I've set the scene for those of you playing along at home2: Saturday. The gig nominally starts at one pm, and despite having stayed up till three the night before in my excitement at finally being able to see the top of my desk, I inexplicably showed up more or less on time - i.e. when the first band was still thinking about considering setting up their gear. Had I been thinking clearly I would have anticipated this eventuality, but I was too busy trying to figure out a game plan for the evening. I was skipping the karaoke portion of Alice's birthday party for the gig, and at some point in the evening she would ring me and let me know they were migrating to Newtown to drink lots of alcohol. I had wanted to meet up with her before I went to the gig as I was going to lend her an awesome belt to go with the awesome dress Melissa gave her, but that did not happen.
So I got to the Annandale, got my wrist stamped and hung out with Alex while bands set up. This mostly involved me bitching about not getting enough sleep, until I got some tea from McDonalds, into which I tipped some vodka from my (still awesome!) stainless steel hipflask. The main event consisted of a longish room with a stage at either end, so that bands could alternate and waste less time in between setting up. One stage was raised and had marginally less shitty speakers. The first band started out on the lower stage.
"Did you bring earplugs?" said Alex.
"What?" I said.
"DID YOU BRING-" he gave up and mimed inserting something into his ears.
"GRMHRGHRH!" said the lead singer.
"That would have been a good idea, huh," I mumbled inaudibly.
After a song or two we wandered outside, where a bloke with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica was singing about a girl that didn't understand him. It turned out several members of bands that were playing on the main stages were also doing acoustic gigs in the alley next to the pub. This was much more melodic but also infinitely less air-conditioned. I busted out my stylish black hand-fan and waved it at my face in time to the music.
When he was done we headed inside to listen to a few more eardrum-splitting bands. The one on the raised stage made me pretty happy because their sound system was at least configured for bass. A pounding rhythm makes up for a lot (hur hur, that's what she said) and this one was reverberating right through my ribcage, which is just how I like'em. I snuck some more vodka in the bathroom and wondered when the promised barbecue was going to show. I also ran into Christian, a dude I met at a Zombie Lurch years ago and had run into at some gigs and Writers' Society things4. He confided that he was sick of the "indie scene" and was trying to get into more punk. I snickered a bit.
The next acoustic set5 was Jen Buxton from Like...Alaska, who was lovely and adorable and talented and got derailed by passing airplanes. She is my age! I feel like an underachiever. (I just googled her to check that data and found her twitter. Oh the internet.) During that set some dudes came out and got the barbecue started, and I ate two sausages and was happy. All the randoms at that gig were really friendly, incidentally. Then the guy from Frenzal Rhomb did an acoustic set which largely consisted of songs about necrophilia and crack addicts selling babies. He was hilarious.
By this point I was getting a bit worried about whether I'd get to see Like...Alaska or A Death In The Family before I had to go to Newtown. Not that I wasn't amused by cheerful dudebros Los Capitanos and their trumpets - apparently a classic feature of third-wave ska is a brass section - but that was not worth thirty dollars!
Another classic feature of third-wave ska, incidentally, turns out to be a type of mosh-pit dance where everybody runs around in a circle, flailing their limbs about. I discovered this when one broke out around me - what had been a normal stationary mosh, abruptly and much to my puzzled terror, became what was basically a human blender. I grabbed hold of someone's bag and hung on till I reached the edge, where I subsequently stood and boggled at it. Alex seemed to be having fun in the thick of things, but he is approximately twice my height and, apparently, a fan of this sort of thing :P
Shortly after this I got Alice's text message and went off to Newtown, which was about twenty minutes away by two buses, hoping vaguely that I could at least relocate that party to the Annandale so that I would not miss too much of the rest of the gig. I nearly got run over crossing the road, probably because my ears were still ringing and the sudden and inexplicable ska dancing had rattled me some. I found Alice awkwardly hanging out with her ex-boyfriend and some people I didn't know at Kelly's pub, gave her the belt and recieved in exchange a baffling yet oddly sexy nuzzle, and sat around watching the pool game for a while.
My belt-bearing duties had been discharged, and the rest of the party had apparently not arrived yet, so I hatched a CUNNING PLAN whereby I would return to Annandale, watch Like...Alaska play, and then go back to Newtown again. Needless to say this plan was entirely dependant on the green weekly travelpass my mum had lent me for the night!
So I hopped back on the bus to Annandale, passing the time with the Breakout game on my phone - the only one of the six listed games which actually works, and is not instead a "demo" which asks you to buy it after ninety seconds of play. So engrossed in this game was I that I looked up to find I was in Annandale, and not entirely sure how many stops till the pub. However, several landmarks looked familiar, so I assumed it was yet to come.
When the bus turned into a street marked "LEICHHARDT PLAZA THIS WAY" I realised that I had in fact passed the Annandale Hotel while playing Breakout, and the reason the ladnmarks looked familiar was that I'd seen them on my way to
mishka_jayne's house. WHOOPS.Like...Alaska was due to start their set right about... NOW, which pissed me off immensely because it meant I'd timed my trip perfectly. You know, assuming I did not FAIL BUSES.
And there wasn't another one back in the right direction for twenty minutes.
So... I jogged from Leichhardt to Annandale.
I actually got there, sweaty and appallingly sober, in time for their last two songs! They were pretty good despite the buzzy mics, and their drummer turned out to be adorably enthusiastic, pummelling her kit and mouthing along to the words. After that, though, I collapsed on a couch and grumbled as Alex attempted to convince me to stay until ADITF. After all that though, the last thing I was in the mood for was jumping up and down, nevermind making excuses for the Annandale's shitty, shitty sound system.
So I trooped on back to Newtown, where the gang were all set up on the rooftop of Kuleto's. I grabbed some take-out noodles and arrived just in time for Sam, David and a very drunk Melissa to make hilarious speeches, following which I got more or less sloshed and chatted with Alice's d'n'd friends. Later we tried unsuccessfully to find a gelato place that was open, and ended up in Maxxx Black.
As you might be able to tell from the name, Maxxx Black is not a gelato place. It is a sex shop. (Well-known as a fairly good, female friendly one, too.) So Alice and Sam picked out their matching vibrators while the rest of us wandered around examining the merchandise. I was amused (and intrigued) to find they had a "bargain BDSM" section - hopefully not second-hand, but quite reasonably priced.
ANYWAY.
(It is now 2:36 am and I feel like this post is getting progressively more incoherent. I don't know why I do all my blogging after midnight these days. Perhaps it is down to the depth of my procrastination.)
We ended up spending the last hour or two of the night sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a Nightride bus in vain, firstly because we were at the wrong bus stop and secondly because the one that DID stop where we were waiting sort of... decided not to, for reasons know only to the driver.
But waiting at a bus stop in good company is not that different from sitting around in a grimy fast food joint in good company. And taking >eight buses (and ~five blocks of jogging) in one night is something I can be cheerful about. All things considered.
1 Not ENTIRELY true, I did actually use my library card frequently.
2 By which I mean, not part of the live-action Days Of Our Maggie cast3
3 I feel like the soapie of my life should have a name more suited to me, but Glee was taken. Any suggestions? On the other hand, Days Of Our Maggie does abbreviate to DOOM...
4 He was not actually a member of the UTS Writers' Society, he didn't even go here, but he knew our president and we ended up at a few of the same poetry readings.
5 Or possibly not right next, I don't remember the order of things too well and somewhere in there was another guy half of whose set I skipped because too many people were smoking outside and my fan was not helping enough.
