Today the January airfare special expired – so I got in with five minutes to spare and bought myself a ticket to Melbourne. I fly out on Monday 21st of March. I guess from here I’ll be confronted with the logistical implications and the ‘what have I done?’ feeling. I’ve given my flatmates advance warning – I’ll be a bit sad to give up this flat as it’s the best one I’ve had and has really felt like home for almost a year now. I even cleaned my room fairly thoroughly yesterday – discovered a couple of good CDs I thought I’d lost: the John Zorn 80s classics Spillane and The Big Gundown (still can’t find Naked City), as well as the Bad Brains and some of my own old recordings (comparing them to the newer stuff, I can say I’m improving – slowly).
It’ll be good to finally start spreading my wings. I’ve been in Wellington for six years now - I get a bit envious of my globetrotting friends and family. For about the last two years I’ve had a strong urge, sometimes repressed sometimes tormenting me, to get out of town. Wellington’s almost too perfect; it’s a utopian city, small but cosmopolitan and without the drawbacks of the big metropolises (not that I’d know). And on bad days I loathe it with a passion – the ‘scenes’ get to me after a while, and all the ‘creative capital’ stuff with its multiple meanings of the word capital. Once something becomes a sales pitch it’s thereby degraded, so I have a love/hate relationship with the Wellington arts scene (and film in particular – don’t get me started).
Melbourne’s a small step, a practice run at international travel. They speak (a version of) English there after all. I should still come back in the second half of the year to finish the $#%@ing shorthand paper for my journalism diploma, then I can travel further afield at the end of the year or early next.
My 2005 wall planner’s starting to fill up nicely. I’m going to be flat out from here on with working – I have an extra incentive to be saving now – and of course the Fringe show. One bit of good news is that Mark, the Festival director, liked the Live 2004 DVD enough to want to screen it at the programme launch on Thursday. Fingers crossed he can jack up a video projector, or at the very least a big-screen tv for it. Then on Sunday it’s the first rehearsal and I/we can start actually playing again.
Seatbelts fastened…
Posted by fiffdimension at January 25, 2005 07:35 PM | TrackBackDoes this mean your choice is made, then?
Congratulations on your big step forward. It'll be great.
Posted by: Sister Novena at January 26, 2005 02:12 AMWow. Cool. The feelling of 'what the hell have I done' is one of the coolest feelings ever! enjoy it.
All the best.
Posted by: arcite at January 29, 2005 05:29 AM