So we hold it close, When we feel the most – Like a love that we could not leave behind

Three photos I took in LACMA a couple of months ago. I don’t know what it is with my obsession – and often OCD – about numbers; especially the number 3.

I have such a great love of art galleries, art museums… and as I mentioned here, I’m often more preoccupied with the space itself, rather than what’s in it. I took those photos in a section of the art museum where the minimalism just got too much and I was far more interested in the floorboards and white walls, than the large canvases featuring large blocks of colours that were on said walls. I know, I know – it sounds terrible – but whilst I’m into countless forms of art, there are just some things I find more fascinating than this “minimalistic” theme in this wing of things.

“Those who are trying to find love will end up with hatred, frustration and insanity. Those who are trying to find wealth will end up totally neurotic, psychotic and totally crab. Because if you are trying to find something, you have basically, intentionally, intuitively, and individually accepted that you do not have it.” – Yogi Bhajan

I read this quote just before, and it’s completely gripped me in the sense that I find it so true. Or at least, the latter part of it. Such a bittersweet declaration that most of us would not think of viewing things this way. Or perhaps, more correctly, we wouldn’t want to.

The good news with me posting this blog entry is that, hurray, I’m still alive and haven’t suffered from any major nerve damages from my wisdom teeth removal surgery on Thursday. The bad news is that all those worries I had about general anesthesia should have been the least of my worries. Shortly after surgery (sometime after 8am), I woke at around 9.15am and the first thing that gripped me was how sore my throat was, from whatever pipes they had shoved down it to help me breathe and suck out saliva, etc. The next thing that I felt was the fact that I couldn’t feel most of the bottom half of my face. All of this so far is pretty standard, thus far, and I was relieved when my surgeon said I should be able to feel in a few hours, and that I would be able to eat rather normally by that evening – fantastic news, really, as I was starving by that point.

However, my paranoia and problems began when I started asking my sister, my friends and friends of friends who had had their wisdom teeth removed as well, to see how long it was before they regained feeling in their mouths. My sister merely said “a few hours”, and the worst I’d heard was “12 hours”, so I was thinking surely, by midnight at the latest, I would be able to feel and move my mouth. I spent much of the day mooching and lounging around, reading, watching TV, falling asleep in the boy’s arms whilst watching TV – that sort of thing – and making a general dick of myself by not being able to talk properly because I couldn’t feel my tongue and my jaw was locked up pretty tightly.

By the midnight, 1am mark, everyone had gone to sleep, and I asked my mother to wake me up in the morning to see whether or not I could feel or not, or if I should ring my surgeon up (apparently she had nightmares about this, oops). I was starting to freak out that I wasn’t even feeling any tingling in my face, you know, signs that the local anesthesia was wearing off – and my bottom lip was cold! I even started having thoughts as to whether I’d rather I had a paralysed leg or a paralysed bottom jaw… my imagination pretty much took off and ran far, far away into the realms of worst case scenarios. After failing to sleep in bed, I ended up on the couch, channel surfing and trying desperately to fall asleep. I ended up making myself a “cup-a-soup”, which I had to keep sticking my finger in, to make sure it wasn’t too hot and that I don’t burn my mouth – because obviously, I couldn’t feel a thing. Luckily, the hot soup seemed to help bring some further tingling and feeling into my tongue, except that it didn’t affect anything else. The last time I glanced at the clock was 3am and my imagination was driving me insane.

The next thing I knew, I woke to my cat prodding my face at 5am. And I thought my face! I can feel! I’ve never been so happy to be woken up at such an hour by my cat before, and the rush of adrenalin resulted in me not being able to sleep for the rest of the day.

Anyway, the point is – yes, I can feel everything now, thankfully, although unfortunately, these painkillers aren’t doing anywhere near enough to help sedate this constant pain I have, even when I’m not moving my mouth. I succeeded in my endeavour to devour an amazing burger from Burger Wisconsin today, but I had to cut it up into tiny pieces with a knife and fork in order to eat it. In the meantime, I keep checking on these stitches of mine, wishing and hoping that they would quickly dissolve and my wounds will heal so that my favourite pastimes (it seems to be) of talking and eating wouldn’t be so painful!

I’ve been listening to Radiohead’s new King of Limbs – does anyone have any thoughts on it yet? It’s on its second play right now, and I’m rather undecided. I guess it will be typical for it to grow on me (as I expect it to), but thus far only one track has really stood out to me.

We parked too close to the water and watched the Seven Swans, Who cares? Who’s right, we mis-gambled pros and cons

Between the 6th and 10th of February, I single-handedly drove more than 1700km on our road trip, circumnavigating much of the North Island.

There was too much drama in merely resizing the 69 photos I picked out for this post, let alone if I were to recount the trip in descriptive detail. We drove from Auckland to Gisborne, then from Gisborne to Wellington – where we saw Sufjan Stevens at the Opera House – and then back to Auckland, continuing further north up to the Whangaparaoa peninsula where we camped for our final night. We sang-along, played I-spy (with my English Rose/Asian eyes), played 20 questions, pulled over at random beaches and lakes, fed ourselves too much, complained about the heat, laughed, cried, fought, read, waited, and waited, and most of all, watched in awe as Sufjan Stevens put on the greatest show I’ve ever been to thus far in my life. I don’t think any concert this year will top his show. I was gutted that he didn’t play my favourite song of his (“To Be Alone With You”) in Wellington, but had played it in Auckland, especially after we drove such a long way – but I’m certain that the Welly gig trumped that of Auckland’s, the night prior. Plus, he played more songs in Wellington than in Auckland. I was afraid that the house was going to come down, after such a raucous demand for an encore, but all was worth the while when he resumed onstage. I feel a bit smugly apologetic to the inexperienced concert-goers who left before the house lights came on, before the encore, before the show was over!

I have to admit, I wasn’t allowed to take any photos at the show, so everything below from the concert are actually contraband – although I did nicely obey and cease to photograph after personally being told off. The one major downside to that is, moments after having been told off, the most picture-perfect moment presented itself, and made me want to cry. I wanted to cry because of how amazing he was, how amazing the show had been, and how I was distraught I couldn’t photographically record the single moment in which all of this was epitomised. When Sufjan got back onstage for his encore and sat at the piano on the very destroyed stage that was covered in props, scattered confetti and leftover balloons, the angle at which he sat, the angle at which the piano was placed in relation to the angle my seat was at… the precise lighting and the way it was cast onto him… everything about that moment was about the most photogenic thing I had ever seen. And in all of irony, in my bag by my feet was my forbidden camera. Furthermore, in my car that was parked a $12 taxi-ride away in Newtown, sat my longer lens. Nonetheless, I felt myself hold that breath longer than any other during the show. I still can’t decide if, when I want to cry thinking about the Sufjan Stevens concert, it’s because of the sheer amazement and awe he brought upon me onstage that night, or because of the missed photo opportunity, or because he didn’t play my favourite song. Maybe it was all three. But maybe the combination of all these things all contributed to making the evening even more bittersweet.

Anyway, here are some photos from the roadtrip. The first beach pictured is a place I would love to revisit:

The random beach we stopped at on our way to Gisborne. First heat attack of the day, once we left the comforts of air con that was courtesy of mum’s Toyota!

Sunset at the beach in Gisborne.

We parked too closed to the water and watched the Seven Swans. Somewhere between Gisborne and Wellington.

Got a bit scared it might come looking for food, so promptly shut the car door after this was taken.

Monsoon Poon in Wellington for dinner.

Good old Wellywood.

Some sculpture thing taking place near the waterfront.

Self.

There was a set of nice poetry in the City Gallery that I enjoyed the most.

I always seem more preoccupied with the way a gallery looks rather than what’s in half of it…

Iconic.

Art work outside Te Papa.

View from inside Te Papa.

The restaurant we returned to on the second night, since we couldn’t get a seat previously.

Amazing dinner. That garlic butter on the steak, on the hash brown with the coleslaw, oh my godddddd.

Sufjan Stevens had an 11-piece band, with screens that were brought down or risen off the stage, depending on the projection display for each song. They were also all wearing florescent gaffer tape!

Balloons were released at the end, before the encore.

I never even knew that we had some kind of Army Museum.

Sunset at Shakespear Regional Park.

The morning after.

Would you betray me, Or save me – Save me from you?

I got interrupted half way through this post but am now leaving for Gisborne so thought I’d just post this anyway and finish it off when I get back.

I have completely no idea where the past seven days has disappeared to, except that it’s been an absolute blast, and that I need to front up to the reality of university starting soon. I went tosee Rusko at the Logan Campbell Centre last night, and was thoroughly surprised that they didn’t ID anybody! It annoying felt more like going to a high school reunion rather than a dubstep gig, and I was getting so frustrated with constantly hearing “woah, what are you doing here?! I didn’t expect to see you at something like this!”. It’s like Sorry people, I’ve gone to more raves and gigs of all assortments in my time than most of you so please shut the fuck up! Is it really so hard to swallow that a jazz student who played classical music, frequents alternative/indie bars and the occasional metal would also attend raves? Nobody at college ever really knew, but by 7th form I went to all the trancey dancey things, but now that scene is pretty dead around here and largely replaced by dubstep. Anyway, I just wanted to have a little rant – this is why I no longer pretend to be friends or even acquaintances of such people from school!

The minute I finish this blog post I have a gazillion things to do and prepare, as I am going to a 21st birthday party tonight, and then having to wake up first thing tomorrow to drive down to Gisborne for the first leg of our roadtrip down to Wellington to see Sufjan Stevens next Tuesday. I’m not too sure how the trip will end up being, actually – because somehow I have ended up being the 3rd wheel – but hopefully it all goes well, and no words of ice are thrown on these hot, hot days.

Here are some photos from Laneway Festival – note that this time I didn’t have access to the photo pit, and took a large proportion of these photos from the crowd, being pushed and bounced… dangerous for my camera, but rather fun – the rest can be found here:

We started the day at Huffer & Vice’s pre-party, for free red bulls and fooood!

The pop-up store’s location.

I ended up buying a mens jacket at a discounted price, which was apparently used in their fashion show.

Loved the fact that Laneway was in the Aotea Square – the view of the Town Hall was lovely.

This is how empty the day started off as.

An Emerald City turned out to be rather nice live, because I didn’t quite “get” them when I looked them up on myspace. Plus, bassist has niiice arms.

Dude looked like he had no teeth – this is how awful Children’s Hour looked, and sounded…

And this is what we did whilst they played.

Difficult-to-eat dessert?

I thank my mum’s long lens that I didn’t have to physically get tooo close to the stage to get shots of Lawrence of Arabia.

Holy Fuck was really HOLY FUCKing good. One of my favourite shots of the day, also.

Ariel Pink was weird. Really weird. End of.

One of my highlights of the day – Blonde Redhead blew all my expectations out of the water. They were soooooo good.

She may dance funny (possibly very drunk), but her voice was the most ethereal thing I’ve ever heard.

I’d say that this is a visual presentation of what they sound like.

I told my friend that I have to marry someone who is still that stylish and classy at that age as the Italian twins.

Sooo good.

The set felt super intimate, as if we were the only people there as we were in the front row, and he even smiled at me! Also because it felt like everyone behind me wasn’t that into them, or really knew the band, and somehow they pulled off a very atmospheric set, even in broad daylight.

I say the right thing, but act the wrong way – If you wanna be with me, baby there’s a price to pay

I’ve fallen asleep in so many places in the past week that I haven’t really been home/online/at my desk, thus the slack amount of blogging. I desperately need some form of decent daily routine to up my productiveness, but the calls of partying is just too loud as the end of summer grows closer in sight. This past week has been quite a whirlwind for me, reconnecting with old ties, severing some recent ones and meeting new people all at the same time. I’m definitely guilty of biting off more than I can chew all the time – starting up more projects than I can physically juggle, and keeping up a sort of rotation-like social life. On one hand, I really enjoy it. I thrive off the copious amount of choices I have with anything from what music I want to listen to/play/write, to who I want to see/chat/dance/drink with, to what I want to be reading and writing in bed, before I sleep.

I had a cold a week ago, largely from Big Day Out, being cold, drenched and tired, and then partying too hard. When it finally eased up a couple of days ago though, what did I do? Drank too much and slept too little again. Aka partied too hard. That, and the storm that New Zealand’s been hit with hasn’t really helped the chances of my immune system with keeping up with me. It looks to be a relatively tame Saturday night tonight, but I think my Wednes, Thurs and Friday nights have made up for it, haha.

The other day I caved and bought these killer shoes for half price. Although, having said that, half price was still fucking expensive. They are ridiculously comfortable though (took them out for 5 hours of dancing, standing and walking around to test drive them that very night, haha), and has resulted in me listing a pile of shoes that I don’t wear on Trademe.co.nz. I’m also currently selling a Sufjan Stevens ticket (Wellington), dress and various shoes. Click here for my listings :).

These bad boys make me veeery, very tall. I’m 5’7″ to start with… the platform itself is 1.5″ and then a 4″ heel wedge…

Mum didn’t say much (guilt, guilt, guilt about retail therapy, but I’m happy with them, haha), except that she looooves the leather. So soft and amazing.

So uhh, I don’t know how my legs ended up looking this tanned in the photo, haha. Very messy room though, am tidying out my wardrobe – dirty laundry on the floor, etc. Typical Amanda.

Aaaaand I’ve finally gotten my Laneway Festival Media Pass. Just smudged out my media outlet’s name until I have the photos and write up to link to.

This track – listen to it. I am so hooked it’s not funny. It’s a mash up of The Strokes’ “Hard To Explain” and Christina Aguilera’s “Genie In A Bottle”. Asides from being pure genius, they happen to be two of my fave tracks – “Hard To Explain” was the first Strokes song I ever heard, and they’ve been one of my favourite bands ever since, so there we have it.

Conversations from Wednesday and last night have really got me thinking about the chronology of my music tastes. I get really flustered whenever people ask me “what music to you like/listen to?”. Because I honestly listen to such a wide variety that I don’t even know where to begin to describe what my tastes are. I know it seems really superficial, but being the music freak that I am, I really do feel that these days, to a lot of people, what music someone is into makes a big enough difference on the impression they leave – akin to that of a first, visual impression. I can’t be bothered analysing my own musical etymology right now, but put it this way, within the two past weeks I have: gone crazy on a one-woman-dance-rampage over Ratatat + relived the nostalgia of my youth in the Deftones moshpit + creamed myself (awful expression, I know) over Rammstein’s set and pyrotechnics from the 2nd row at BDO + gone clubbing at places where “everyone goes” and they play supposedly the “most popular” tracks + had a blast to Tidball’s set at Cassette 9 + spent the rest of that evening listening to pop favourites from the past decade with friends (think Britney Spears, Blue, Christina Aguilera, Back Street Boys, Liberty X, Mis-Teeq sort of stuff)… not to mention, in the next two weeks I will see an array of bands at Laneway Festival that are more akin to recent music tastes + go to see Rusko + be at Sufjan Stevens’ concert in Wellington… I would also love to see Queens of the Stone Age again, but I can’t really bring myself to fish out $85 ish in my current state of unemployment.

Don’t even mention it – I’ve been looking and applying for jobs. And I know that I’m picky, because I want to keep whatever job I get as a part-time thing for the next two years, like I did with my last job – so I don’t want to hate whatever it is!

Sometimes I spin around for days. This valid and logic motion is what keeps me from moving

I had a very interesting 21 hours during which I did nothing but indulge. Films, music, drinks, conversation and company. It felt like living at present was living in the past. I always think that company can make or break whatever it is that you’re doing. I could be listening to the same music, watching the same films, drinking the same thing, but if it’s with someone I find uninspiring and boring, or someone too inappropriately provocative and drama-bringing, then I just won’t have anywhere near as good of a time.

We watched Into the Wild, followed by An Education, both of which I’d like to delve into, maybe in a post a couple of days from now, because I don’t think it would do Into the Wild any justice for me to sleeplessly blog about it. One of my best friends, Takuma, is always raving about that film – quoting it, and referring to it when he’s feeling down or when he feels like life is out of perspective – so I’m happy to say that now I can finally discuss it with him at length. I just need to work out the time difference between here and New Orleans, and what his schedule this semester at Tulane is like. I hate how its such a mission to try to have a verbal rather than email interaction with such a close friend.I guess it makes us cherish what conversations we do manage to have with one another, but it’s also such a hassle!

Here are photos from November 13th, 2010 – the day I spent with my sister in Santa Monica, and later at a college party when I crashed at her dorm. I’m going to slowly post my photos from California over time… it might take a while… Also, I specifically picked out a bunch of photos that I’m in, because (as you may have noticed) I’m hardly ever in any of the photos I post, since I’m usually the one behind the camera – so it was nice to have my sister around for helping me provide visual proof of my wanderlust:


Santa Monica beach.


Bridge over the Pacific Coast Highway.


PCH.

Jandals and Doc Martens in hand, the sand was just sooo nice beneath my feet.

I didn’t realise that the life guard hut said “KEEP OFF” until after we took these photos and Liv decided to tell me…


Free towel came in very handy, thanks Pepperdine!

Liv being a silly cutey.

I freaking loved these dinosaurs! My expression in an earlier photo was pretty priceless… but it was really dark :/

3rd Blvd/Promenade.

Lunch! We really regretted picking a restaurant near were a guy was busking via means of smacking on drums as hard and fast as he could, for as long as possible…


REALLY GOOD STEAK SANDWICH. I was so full afterwards.

Me being very happy with my new $20 hat.

Did I mention? I FUCKING LOVE THESE DINOSAURS.

Impending sunset.


SUNSET!

Liv took these silhouette photos of me under my strict, strict instruction, yay.

I can never decide which I like better.


The good ol’ 534 bus we had to wait for.

Touristy photo at Liv’s school with the sign. She couldn’t fit the whole thing in but that’s okay… this was right before we had to hike up a bloody steep and HUGE hill…

Going oooouuuutttt!

My first American college party experience. It was hilarious to say the least: “THE COPS ARE HERE! GET INSIDE!” vs. “THE COPS ARE HERE, GET OUTSIDE TO THE BACKYARD BY THE POOL!” – uhh sorry, everyone’s wasted, which is the correct set of instructions? To leave, it turned out.

Beeer pong!

Also, after last night and today’s marathon listening, I still, still can’t stop listening to the band Blonde Redhead – their discography is so big that I wouldn’t even know where to begin my recommendations to post a youtube link of. As Daniel and I were saying, they’re such a good band to escape into, akin to My Bloody Valentine; but the upside is that with such a large body of work, you never have to repeat just the one album, as you would do with MBV’s Loveless.

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