The Harrington Files: Back To Baseline

Eating my leftovers in front of the stereo listening to Okkervil River is a really nice moment. For me, I don’t know I just love the simple things like that, that is a feeling worth bottling and what makes my day. I was at the internet café today checking my email, reading some interesting articles on the Dolls, browsing the Shadow Box and Googling a few lyrics. And then, here I am, free internet, unrestricted access, flash drive at the ready – with nothing to look up. For an internet fiend such as myself, this was devastating. I couldn’t think of a single thing, on the whole internet that I had been meaning to look up. I loitered for a bit and then ended up taking off for work 5 minutes early (work work not school). And it was fucking freezing outside. I’m not sure exactly how cold, but after about three steps my hands were icy. So I decided in order to warm up, I would jog to work. It was really nice and refreshing, it wasn’t very far but I got to jog along the footpath next to the water and see some birds and some Italian tourists.

Just after arriving at work I heard this song on the radio, and I swear (if it is indeed that old) I hadn’t heard it in ten years. It was real blonde young girl 90s pop. I spent the rest of my time trying to remember the lyrics of the chorus, so I could look it up; which I still haven’t done, so I don’t know who it was or what it’s called but it went “What I am is what I am, and what you are oh why.” It was really cool.

But aside from this, in half celebrating the fact that I feel pretty grounded at the moment, I would like to take the opportunity to apologise, again, but this time for the whole incident. My uh, how do you say – “minor freak out.” The things that I have been dealing with have been pretty big; to me they are everything, my dreams, hopes and future. They have all changed in the course of this blog. You have been there as I have mostly sorted out my Amanda situation and my singing teacher has told me the truth about my chosen university.

But I have found that there are other courses out there, one not necessarily far away and some more specialised and less specialised ones as well. I will only know what I am aiming for once the course guide comes out in June or July, but then I will only know if I have got into one in January. But the whole thing might be a lot further away than I think. I told you about the problem I may face with having to move closer to the university, this of course cannot happen in the two months between acceptance and term commencement. So the logical option may be that I defer and take a gap year to move and sort it all out. I am only cautious because I see myself doing what I do on my holidays and sleeping in till midday, eating badly and generally getting out of the study habit, making university harder than it needs to be. But on the upside the time will be good, it might slow down an otherwise hectic period in anyone’s life and I will be able to get used to living in my new house and start university at the same time as most of my friends.

But as I said, a LONG way off yet. Still. Thank goodness.

I have, in light of this, been taking stock of my song poem things. I did this before and now quite a few of them feature scribbles critiquing their quality, reminding me which other song I was trying to capture the essence of and instruments that could be used in its performance. But this time I didn’t write anything, I tried to sing, not for the value of my voice, but to see how different the songs were melody and rhythm wise. They were not exceptionally varied, some did reflect the song essence I was trying to capture, some were limited by my voice and obvious lack of musical ability and instruments. But then I thought, this great varied conceptual thing that I am hoping to achieve, first of all takes years to perfect; second, needs musicians; and third, I will be writing songs and improving forever. Continually changing and recapturing this thing, always, this is my thing and this is what I do. I needn’t stress about what I have now, people hardly ever use songs that they wrote when they were, well I started this batch when I was 13; and now I think they are just getting good. I think this batch might have a shot at something.

I must not let all the importance and stress let me forget that all of this university/gap year thing is terribly exciting. It’s not going to be the death of me, it’s going to be the start of something amazing.

And just because I can and it has been FOREVER since I posted some photos; here are some I took recently. My fish in their tank with their ceramic outhouse model, the only thing that I made in year 9 ceramics that was remotely suitable for a fish tank. I prefer to think of it as an art piece that makes a statement about global warming. “The Melbourne Backyard 2040.”