TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

2:33 PM
Posted by jodi rose

first overcast day we'vd had since I got back. enjoying the melancholy. not enough rain to break the 30 year drought, but a few drops on parched earth. that and global warming giving sydney an endless summer - it's warmer here than in helsinki I noticed on sbs news last night.
exceedingly fragile this weekend. just can't keep up with my life.
yasmin reminded me that saturn is still going over my sun for another month, end of 2 year cycle, time of hard work and also wanting to retreat. but it will pay off. eventually. and I can see that, just feel
completely overwhelmed by everything and not really coping.
but it will pass. robyn reminded me that you have to stop sometimes, just forget about it all for a few hours - otherwise obsessive workaholic tendencies just increase the stress level without any more productivity. my free floating anxiety is still very high pitched. tried some transcendental metaworry on the bus - technique invented by lewis thomas, where you just give into all your worrying for 20 minutes, then let it go. haven't quite got the second part yet.
bought my digital midi theremin kit at jaycar, now off to the workshop by gijoe from toydeath to learn how to make it. never did get the hang of soldering at art school - we had the inimitable and wonderfully inspiring joyce teaching us in 2nd year, but my projects were always impossible. nothings changed! I used to spend most of the class sitting with one end of the voltometer in each hand, trying to influence the electricity reading with my thoughts. am sure that will pay off sometime!!
once I build the theremin can start practising with it for live performances - it just got too embarassing doing gigs with cd mixers, so I've had to come up with a more theatrical performing style.
looking forward to playing the bridge with my theremin.
time to start customising my laptop - which is a fun job. I've got stickers, open source software, lots of ideas to play with.
wrote up all the questions, ideas and concerns I have about the tv doco and send them off to Ben, he's meeting with Jean-Philippe on Monday. I'm working on collecting the video material from people now, which involves them doing gigs cause they all work live. so it will take a bit longer than just editing and then burning a dvd. tried to warn him that art has its own timescale, not easily hurried or made to fit into a television schedule. but then realised I could probably do the bridges for peace concert some time in 2006, don't have to wait for copenhagen in 2007. crazy have never planned this far ahead in my life. knowing what I'm doing later tonight is usually a challenge, let alone making a plan for next week. but getting better at it.
really looking forward to my four months writing in slovakia. have been dreaming of time in a cottage by the water, out of the bustle of the city. town of 13,000 on the danube will be just the thing :)
and hell, if I keep making obsessive blog entries I could write it despite myself. must apply for that visa. two different people quoted in the herald spectrum today, talking about how as an artist, and particularly a writer, you can't censor yourself.

lucinda williams (in an article on women singers over 40 - yep tired of young girls angst, these women are rockin!) 'Like any real artist, you don't censor yourself. I grew up around poetry, and you can't censor yourself writing poetry, wether it's a cat sleeping in the window or the wreck you saw on the highway or sex. It's part of life' (yep and this is the wreck on the highway.... only joking. you know how I feel about thisblog, that it's train wreck writing, horrifying and compelling at the same time. all about being raw and personal.)

and mandy sayer 'in writing a first draft, I never censor myself; I always pretend I have no audience at all, and that's the only way, psychologically, that I can do it.'

end of philosophising, time to go and solder.
xxx jr