Now, I love Katie Noonan. The woman has one of the best voices I've ever heard. It's going to be fantastic, says I.
So if you want to come and see it with me, give me a call! Hurrah!
Oh, and the MSO is doing a whole lot of free shows at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl over February, which is of course, delightful. I'll probably try to go to a few, because when isn't a free symphony a good thing?
Plenty happening lately, the most dramatic news of all being that my landlord has decided he wants his his back, and has therefore given me 60 days to find new digs. Goddamn it, I hate moving so much, and the rental market is fucked. Argh. But I have two months, and Tran is still moving in (thank god) and I'm sure it'll all work out. At least, I hope it'll all work out. Anyone got a spare goat I can sacrifice? Eeep.
So that's keeping me busy. Hopefully I can find somewhere local. I really love the area. Plus, the cafe is here.
Speaking of the cafe, which shall remain nameless, lest people track me down and fire me... Well, I suppose it's OK. I'm pretty sure that one of the girls who has been working there for an age hates me. In fact, I'm rather certain. I can just see the annoyance seething under the surface every time she talks to me. It's not my fault I don't know the ins and outs of the place yet. And I am trying, but the place is just so idiosyncratic that it's really hard to break into. And, I don't know, it makes me feel stupid. Although not as stupid as the girl who didn't know what a cafe latte was. Dude.
Anyway, it makes Swatch a million times more awesome by default. Because I know what I'm doing there, and I can handle pretty much anything anyone can throw at me. It's good to know what you're doing.
Oh, and writing. Don't want to say too much, because it always kind of spoils my ideas in a way, but I have a fantastic one that is fleshing out nicely. We'll see how it goes, but I feel really positive about it.
I was wandering around my room looking for clothes in my underwear today and I saw, tucked into the bottom of my bookshelf, the Verandah anthology that I'm published in. I picked it up and flicked to my piece, which I've always thought should be better. But... It was pretty good. Oh, I can see how I'd improve it now, and some things still bother me stylistically, but... It worked. The language was rich and detailed and the concept worked better than I'd remembered.
It gave me a fantastic lift. I find it really difficult to have confidence in my writing, because it's so very hard to judge the quality of your own work - especially as people might easily love it completely or fucking despise it... I think all writers do this to some extent. About the only thing you can do is keep at it, I guess, or try to get as much distance from a piece as you can before making any kind of judgement on its merits.
It must be so hard for people writing personal trauma pieces to be able to distance themselves enough from the work to actually work on the quality of the writing. I'm in awe of that.
Anyway. I feel good about writing, today. It was a nice reminder that I can create something that's not total shit, and that people like it enough to get it out there.
It's been a while between updates, eh? I've actually had a whole lot of things that I've wanted to post on here, but I haven't had the time, or I've been in a terrible mood and haven't wanted to write (although that didn't last long, and Jes and Q cured me of it.)
I went to an engagement party on Saturday night. It was Formal Dress, which meant I could either play the gay card and go in a suit or wear a dress. I considered the suit, I really did, but in the end... Yep. A dress. The One Dress, to be precise. And I looked really good, which was ever so slightly surprising. I'm going to have to get a photo of the damn thing one of these days. Anyway, it was the engagement of a friend of Cherry's, Dee, and his partner Kim. First gay engagement I've ever been to, and I was so touched by the speeches that they both gave (and the speeches by their parents) that I cried. It was the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. Everyone was so happy and loving and proud. Even Cherry cried, although she'll be the first to deny it.
James and I watched Battlestar Galactica for about nine hours on Sunday, which was most excellent. He's dying to watch Razor now, and I don't blame him. Oh, and he wasn't even shocked when you know who does you know what at the end of S3. (Come on, that's got to be cryptic enough not so spoil?) Ah, BSG. You're so awesome.
Speaking of fan-squee, I have two things to share. The first is stolen from Amanda Palmer's blog. It's also on my iPod and I keep looking at it and thinking 'Man, I love those guys.' It, for me, encapsulates the band. It also makes me really fucking happy.
So here it is. Big giant Dresden Dolls hug!
Isn't that fucking beautiful? I think so.
The second thing I have to share is very cool. I was digging around on the Musewiki and discovered that they made a video at the Sydney concert that Q and I went to in November. Check it out, the sexiest Matt you've ever seen doing Fury, live in Sydney. I fucking love this because I SAW IT LIVE. How many (pro) Muse videos can I say that about? Oh, pretty much none. Except this one. Yay!
There's a better version here which fits very nicely onto an iPod. Oh, it's so pretty.
That's it for now, but I have something else I kind of want to write. Maybe tomorrow.
