Schrodinger's Cat

matariki / solo

It seems to be a tradition for me since moving to Wellington that I enjoy the second half of a year better than the first. This would make sense with the seasonal changes, spring rather than autumn. I seem to get more done. December is party season with my birthday, Christmas and New Year, reconciliations etc. But we're in the dark part of 2004 now, not too far til the solstice. Matariki is being celebrated from this weekend which is good – it gives a sense of newness, much more logical than an arbitrary date like January 1st.

The year so far's been good, the journalism course was probably a good choice for things to do, and the timing was right - having turned 25 I get a student allowance that I can just live off. So that's going ok, but things are good rather than great. Two things are missing, and they're pretty much my favourite activities in the world: sex and playing live music.

The shortage of gigs has been frustrating. Forming a band last year was one of the two things, along with a career change, or three things if I count paying off my student loan, that made 2003 the best of times as well as the worst of times. The Winter seemingly ground to a halt though after our last gig at the end of October, when Mike put a veto on gigs so he could write his novel. I exiled myself to Paekakariki while I waited to find out if I had HIV and wrote peripatetically. Now we're all supposedly keen to play together again but we can't seem to get our schedules together - it's only three people, how hard can it be? This time it was Simon who pulled the plug on this weekend's jam, pleading other commitments. We'll sort it out eventually. The gig at Photospace on the 7th was great fun, whets my appetite for more.

I'm having to get back into playing & writing solo, inventing new material. A sixth album is beginning to take shape in my mind, though it's only a vague distant blur at this point. I'm at the 'conceptualising' stage, which can take months or years, and I have to arrange the scraps of half-ideas in my notebooks into workable compositions. I'm slowly reasserting the creative drive that I had in my early 20s and which took a major knock when I got dumped last year. Clawing my way back to mental competence has been a difficult process, but necessary. 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger' - except in a way it did kill me. The photo of me at Bats on my previous blog entry was taken on the first night of the Speakeasy show; ten hours later I had the encounter with the transsexual prostitute described in the first entry on this blog. I performed the second night, with my ex in the audience, under the awful knowledge. I kept the secret from most of my friends. What's disturbing is the way I gambled on my own life, playing Russian Roulette with nothing to gain and everything to lose. Somehow I had died inside. Two of the tracks on Loose Autumn Moans were recorded post-encounter – it did the job of getting some duende in the performances. How’s that for method acting?

I spent the summer thinking about what would happen if I had contracted HIV. Suicide seemed a feasible option; I imagined swimming out past Kapiti Island and just keeping going. An odd thing gave me hope though in January, a week or so before I had the blood test – I cut my finger surprisingly badly with a kitchen knife, and burst out laughing in a strange kind of happiness. The cut left a scar. The scar is something new that didn’t exist before I was 25, so it meant that I was out of the 2002/03 yin-yang vortex. And the blood test turned out OK, so I got off with a warning. Since then I’ve also developed a couple of small warts on my right hand – another new thing specific to this year.

So I seem to be pretty well adjusted now, this is a far more stable year than last. I miss having the band - that was just as much of a relationship as having a girlfriend in its way, but the music’s now developing a distinct identity different from last year’s sound, in the same way that was different from 2002. I should do a couple more gigs in June, then more in July.

As for my love life, nonexistent would be the word to describe it. I’m way past the being broken up over breaking up stage. Now I just feel like life is pretty good, but would be better if I had a companion to share it with. I’ve had a few dating encounters so far this year:

1) Emotionally repressed 24 year-old commerce student living with her parents – no spark, nothing in common.
2) Good first date, my ex saw us kissing at the bus stop so good for political purposes. Second date a dull drinking session, I’m not that keen on heavy alcohol consumption. I didn’t hear from her for a while – turned out she’d made a suicide attempt, apparently an unrelated issue. I didn’t want to get involved with someone who’d put that kind of pressure on me, plus not interested in matching her alcohol intake. She says she’s fine now.
3) BNZ human resources worker earning $60K salary. My age, has flash car and a mortgage. Two dates, both ending in very pleasant prolonged kissing sessions in the car. But she changed her mind, said she wanted to be solo for a while. We got on well but she seemed a bit disdainful of my more modest living standards and single bed.
4) 39 year-old writer, ex-druggie now into fitness, likes younger men, intellectually stimulating but apparently a platonic thing.
5) This one doesn’t count as a date but there was a seriously attractive female I met last year who’d just moved to Wellington and who I had a good chance with - good conversation and she kept dropping unsubtle hints about being horny. Unfortunately this was while I was under the possibility of having a deadly disease so morally had to go home alone. I saw her again on Valentine’s Day this year, with new boyfriend – triggered one of my very rare drinking binges, to the point of being comatose.

My main priority is working towards going travelling next year so I’m not looking for anything permanent, but would rather not be solo at this point. I had a somewhat stunted development not having siblings in childhood, being somewhat naturally shy, and in adolescence going to a conservative boys’ school, so I’ve never learned how to pick up women. The two really good relationships I’ve had were both the result of the woman asking me out. My problem’s maybe that I’m too willing to go with anyone who’ll ask me (hence perverse transgender encounter, which also flies in the face of my hetero-sexual orientation), although those occasions are few and far between. Otherwise there's just the usual problem of women ending up with creeps and good guys ending up alone.

This just makes me sound neurotic and isn’t going to help my cause is it? 25yrs, 6’3”, unattached, good physical shape, creative, likes the outdoors, seeks…

Posted by fiffdimension at May 28, 2004 02:05 AM | TrackBack