(no subject)

[darren_stranger]

A quick update / ramble, before trying to catch up on the 150 odd LJ posts i've missed.


Horrorpops tonight!  I still can't believe a band i really like from overseas is coming out, instead of things like Nine Inch Nails and VNV that i'm not the slightest bit interested in.  (I was thinking about NIN the other day, specifically how they've gone from being one of my favourite bands (ish) once upon a time to something i now equate as synonymous with mediocrity, and how it has nothing to do with the music itself and everything to do with memories and associations.  It was an interesting look at how my mind and tastes work, though that's a whole 'nother story).  But yeah.. Horrorpops are go!

 

Looking forward to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang's Monster Mash next week.  Should be a hoot, and an excuse to 'ghoul up' a bit more than usual.  The inclusion of ''gothabilly" in the flyer has also raised my interest (despite being a dreadful word), as that's something i've thought for a while would fit in well with a goth/deathrock theme.  Hopefully enough others like that stuff so it'll stay part of the menu, though i realise not everybody's going to see goth and rockabilly as a natural combination, any more than any of the other crossovers (goth and fetish, goth and metal, goth and rave..) people have thought obvious over the years.  I was planning to slip a little of that stuff in with my set anyway, though i mustn't get carried away shoving my taste down people's throats (there's no-one as fanatical as a new convert, so they say).  DJing at an earlier hour this time means i'll have to take even more care to keep people entertained and resist the temptation to be too self-indulgent in general.  Ha - like i know what's popular anyway!

 

Earlier that night, i'll be rushing home from a taekwondo patterns competition to get ready.  Originally, i got an entry form in the mail from my instructor with three of us entered in a teams event (something i'd agreed to ages ago but forgotten about), and i cracked the sads because it was KKBB night and i didn't want to do it, but now felt obliged (we need at least three to make up a team).  Then when we started back for the term, it turned out he hadn't entered us yet and i still had the choice to opt out, at which time i said "fuckit" and decided to do it anyway.  I've generally not been that keen on these competitions, having never been the slightest bit competitively oriented and not seeing the value in wasting the whole afternoon hanging around in order to spend 90-odd seconds doing two patterns, especially when it means missing out on an actual training class where i could spend an hour or more learning something.  But i decided i do need some challenges to make things interesting, so a bit of competing might add a little spice and something to test myself against.  Only trouble is, we haven't really practised as a group much, so i'm not quite sure what the point is now, and i'm also worried they'll change the schedule and put the teams on later in the night, which will mean i'll have to pike out anyway as i don't want to have only ten minutes to get ready for Monster Mash (that's why i didn't enter the individual event, which starts at 9pm!).  One of our team members is sick with the flu this week, so we may end up pulling out anyway, though i don't hope for him to stay sick and miserable just for that. Hopefully the next comp won't clash with anything and i can go in the individual (and maybe creative) section and start to put myself to the test.  Next time, Danger Mouse.

 

Oh yeah, i also decided to stop being a whinger, though it looks like i need to work on that some more.  :)

 

What else was i going to write about?  Ah, that's right.  I was looking the other day at a train station billboard for MyCareer and wondering why the tattooed hula-hoopist's name sounded familar.  Finally i pegged her as a girl i used to know from the Ballarat scene, and as my mind tried to wind back 15 years from the woman on the poster to the little teenage girl of then, i found myself thinking:  Fifteen years?  Fuck!  Has it really been that long since those days?  It only seems like about five, and i wondered where the time had gone.  As i've thought about it, i realise that it actually is as if time had stopped for ten years and, for the most part, the 90's really was a Lost Decade for me.  Okay, i did do a lot of things in that time, and some of the most important events of my life happened then, but at the same time, there was an awful lot of time spent sitting around waiting for this or that.  In particular, the lack of a social life is what really seems to have made it seem like life was on hold, and all the 'little' things like, oh, getting married and going to Egypt, campaigning with Amnesty, taking up taekwondo again etc, just seem to be occasional blips on an otherwise flat plain of waiting around for a big weekend out that usually never came.  It's only been in the last few years that that has changed, and i really do feel like i'm living the life now that i should have been living in my twenties.  That's probably a major part of why it's still a big deal for me and why i have so much trouble relating my biological age to the way i feel (not to mention my distaste for anything that reminds me of the '90s - see NIN above).  I guess if there's anything to be gained from this bit of introspection, it's that this is why i have to work harder to grab life by the gonads every chance i get, or i'll wake up one day and wonder why my life is over and i haven't even started to live it.

 

Next priority - work out what the fuck i want to do when i grow up.  My job's stressing me less now, but it's still another Same Shit, Different Decade game that makes life stand still while time runs away from me.  Clock's ticking, better get a clue and soon.

 

Hmm, so much for a short update.  And for catching up on el-Jay.  Hope you're all doing well out there.  See some of you tonight.

 

PS - Elaine says thanks to everyone who gave answers for the 'Where Is My Mind?' question.  Some great stuff to work with.  (At least she knows what she wants to do when she grows up.)

 

Keep well, all.  Love you longtime.

Comments

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that Monster Mash theme sounds like fun :) Tempting, tho I'm real bad at the makeup thing.

Good to know youre stressing less!

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Hey, i can't do makeup for shit. And i've god the photos to prove it.

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Oh twang, you! You looked great in the Clockwork Orange garb!

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Except for the Peter Costello ears. :)

Must remember to tuck 'em in.

[severina-242.livejournal.com]

I might go to the Monster Mash - it could be my celebration for having my freedom back again.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

What freedom's that?

(Haven't been keeping up)

[severina-242.livejournal.com]

that'll be the 3 and a half extra hours I'll have every day when I don't have to travel to Cheltenham by PT every night to feed my mum's dog because my siblings are too wussy or too lazy to do it.