2006-07-14 - 12:15 a.m.

This entry is brought to you by the month of July. Seeing as the last thing I wrote about was June 29th, and as far as I can remember nothing significant happened the day after that. Incidentally the month of July (not to mention the month of June) has been full of freezing nights that make it very hard to get out of bed, let alone get motivated to do all that much. Tonight's not bad at all, but last night (which I will detail soon enough) was freezing. Gah. I can't wait to experience late Summer/ early Autumn in San Fransisco. Although by then it will be warming up- I recall some glorious late August days in the last few years.

Anyway, Saturday July 1st saw me at the Gaelic Club for Clare Bowditch with Cindy, her sister Mel, Kel and her flatmate Peta. Another memorably freezing night, though it was fine inside. We had really good Thai on Crown Street, a sensible amount of wine for a supervisor who is socialising with one of his reports the night before an early morning at work, and enjoyed a good set by Care Bowditch and the Feeding Set. Much of the audience were painfully loud during the set however. Favourite moment was forgetting they contributed "Fall at Your Feet" the Finn tribute last year, and being surprised by it in the encore.

Sunday after work I had a few drinks at the pub with Nathan, Kel and Peta- I was tired after the night before but it was a changeover day. We also had Tapas, despite the fact that I'm sure I would have picked out something to cook that night. Went home at a sensible hour- about 10pm, getting a bunch of DVDs on the way. The mandatory "Angel" to follow the series I borrowed from Erin and had finished, as well as some from the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die"- namely Fargo (grisly yet warm and quirky Coen brothers), Farenheit 9/11 (much talked about Michael Moore documentary), Carrie (early 70s Stephen King adaptation) and Last Tango in Paris (early 70s Marlon Brando famous for being risque but I got bored very quickly and didn't get through it). Clearly they were not all watched on the same night.

My three night shifts of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were refreshingly uneventful from memory (although I was hoping to get more out of the mornings than I did), and then on my first day off, on which I wrote in here about my last cycle at work, I acheived plenty.

After doing a few things around the house (including opening all the windows, putting some music on and mopping the balcony), I walked up to Newtown to buy birthday parents for my Mum and Dad, bought a chicken roll from the Sunrise Bakery, ate it in the park while reading "Drum Media", bought a couple of CDs for myself to boot (The Mountain Goats' "Tallahassee" and "The Sunset Tree", You Am I "Sound As Ever" and The Kaiser Cheifs "Employment"- the latter two of which were on a 2 for $20 table). I'm pretty sure I then caught up with Nathan for a few beers and then cooked a good Spaghetti with Anchovies, Chilli and Parsley.

Friday 7th July- I probably slept in longer than I had planned, but still managed to collect my drycleaning, go grocery shopping (feeling inspired to buy an outdoor broom and a new mop so I can continue to use the old one on the balcony), and head down to the Shire for dinner for my Mum's birthday (that my parents' birthdays are a week apart has always caused plenty of present buying pressure, and it doesn't help that my sister's birthday and Fathers' Day are always less than a week apart and my brother's birthday is twelve days after Christmas).

Later that night, ie after returning from the Shire, I caught a cab up to Newtown to meet Mark at the Townie. It turned into one of those nights were you are talking to people from about five different circles, most of whom link together. Probably the most interesting was Rowan, who got together with Annie the same night as Jane called me drunkenly and we discussed whether or not she was my girlfriend (we decided on the affirmative and hence it became the day we officially got together). It was really good talking to him, mainly because he's a great guy that I never got to know- having met him through Annie just as everything was turning sour. I remember Jane sometime down the track wondering if they were still together, musing over the fact that we shared the same anniversary as it were. I guess it sticks in my mind because it was an indication of how bad things were at the time that neither of us knew if they were still together. I think that despite what was happening bewteen Annie, Jane and I, her initial time with Rowan was one of the most positive in her life- which at the time was probably hard to take because as close as Jane and I were to her it took Rowan to- at least temporarily- lift her out of where she was. It's no surprise to me that since she re-established contact with me a little under two years ago there have been plenty of times where it seems she hasn't been okay- surely then up until that out-of-the-blue email she must have been a lot more okay than she had been for a while. Strong enough not only to convince herself that she didn't need Jane or I, but to actually not need us.

Anyway, we were talking about Annie- and about our (Rowan, Mark and myself) varying degrees of contact with her (Rowan hasn't seen her in about 3 years), and about that weird period- where Rowan and I knew all about each other, but maybe exchanged a total of five sentences on one or two occasions. I think it was helpful for all of us- or at least Rowan and I, I'm not sure that Mark has any interest in dissecting the period that he and Annie were at odds- he was happy to bury the hatchet and re-establish a close friendship without any mention of things past when the opportunity arose. "Nice work if you can forget it" as the Lucksmiths put it. I also might try to meet up with Rowan for Townie trivia now and again, if the mood takes me.

Going back to the night at the Townie- Chris (not the anally retentive music nerd) and his brother and friend turned up and sat with us also. I met Chris through Ruth, but his girlfriend is Rowan's flatmate (and both she and Rowan are school friends of Ken, who was a close friend of Jane, Mark and Annie), and Chris also had a brief interest in Phoebe, when she and Mark were broken up for a short time.

Like I said- one of those nights.

Next day (Sunday 8th) I didn't do very much, but decided to go back to the Gaelic Club by myself to see the Fiery Furnaces (with the Devoted Few and Laura Imbruglia). Seeing bands by myself reminds me of seeing Ben Kweller at Irving Plaza in New York City, and also helps me empathise with Jane right now. The Fiery Furnaces' set was not quite what I expected, compared to their support slot for Franz Ferdinand a few years back- gone were the quirky keyboard parts and instead it was Velvet Underground meets... something suitably thrash/punk. And in their current guise (at their core is Eleanor and her brother, but they had a bass player and drummer who obviously were new) they hadn't learned my favourite of their songs ("Here Comes The Summer")- which isn't even a old song. Devoted Few I really liked though, and Laura Imbruglia had her moments, but didn't overly impress me on the whole. It's been a while since I stood through a headliner and two supports at a gig.

Anyway, that takes me up to the end of the last cycle. I'd better go to bed so I can get up early and make something of the day before work. And pick up my car from the mechanics. But that's another story...

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