ready to start

slept in again. lenny and i tend to fall into bed at around 2am, so i guess that's why. and it's overcast today. i counted the church bells at 11, then again at 12. shortly afterward i'm here in the kitchen, reading excited messages about nye on facebook. yes, it's almost time to start 2011 there. but i have 11 hours to go.

life's good when your main concern in the morning is whether to finish off the rye bread or go and get some fresh croissants. i try to convince myself that the latter is necessary for this 'special day'. but i don't really believe that, so rye it is.

last night i had another dream which involved something sexual with someone i dislike very much. that's two nights in a row. these are people i've spoken and written about in unfavourable terms. yet in each of the dreams they revealed some frailty, need, and affection. perhaps the lesson is to accept that bullying and egotism come from insecurities, and are not innate in such people. a nice message from my unconscious, but really, i could do without the imagined sensation of their bodies pressed into mine. even if was enjoying it (until the rupture of waking).

my 5 best albums of 2010:

of montreal - fake priest
los campesinos! - romance is boring
arcade fire - the suburbs
stars - the five ghosts
beach house - teen dream

i can't imagine liking 2010 half as much if this music didn't exist. i recall getting stars and arcade fire around the same time, and alternating the two. stars plays as i walk to bourke st bakery for a loaf of bread. it's not a short walk - long enough to hear most of the album, there and back. and i step to the beat of a more pop sound from them, which i decide, en route, that i'm happy with. yes, this is a good album. and it's all about ghosts. and nobody can see me when i'm plugged into the stereo, walking this path, in the late morning of a weekday.

arcade fire's 'ready to start' had me holding my fists in my pockets, lest i should start punching the air at the bus stop. this is the sound of breaking through something, a wall, a roof, a barrier in place for so long that it appears to be a normal obstacle that one cannot challenge. but here it is. a blend of anger and hope, but mainly the latter, and a promise of something lovely that might come with persistence, determination, and saying yes to what i might otherwise fear. at the airport i felt ready to start, even in the absence of this song.

i show joal some beach house earlier in the year. i'd been listening to it on the way to his house, once again floating along the streets of marrickville. he seemed to like it. we had coffee and talked about boys, and then i played it some more. later i would miss out on tickets to the sydney gig, which is around the time i return home. later still (as in last week) i would be fucking a beautiful skinny man to this album. the sound moved with his body and mine, and then evaporated with the smoke floating from his cigarette as he crouched on the bed, naked and softened. he shows me the view of the sacre coeur from his balcony, and farewells me into the night.

of montreal is when jessie is away and the house is often empty and so the stereo volume increases as i eat my breakfast and this album is played. it's waking up rebellious, playing sounds and lyrics in which nothing is sacred. fuck this, fuck everything, and oh my, this bit sounds like prince. yes. it's a big dose of pleasure in my own company, in my space, with a soundtrack fitting for me, then and there, in my beautiful discontent. fuck everything indeed.

and then there's los campesinos! which was a high for pretty much the entire year (although it's been absent for the last month). this and of montreal are my two obsessions of 2010. i'm more of a missionary with this band, and introduce it to friends, all of whom seem to like it. i feel myself smiling on the bus. i watch myself almost collide with a car entering enmore rd because i'm listening too damn hard. but i don't flinch. car can wait. and i decide on a bus heading to uni that i'll make a zine of collage to this album (for this album) because it's messy, disordered, chaotic, and amusing. and it's where my life exactly was, at that point. but maybe i'm coming out of that stage now. so maybe the zine can't happen. and maybe i'm ready for something new that can shape itself around my 2011, whatever that may taste like.