Peregrine's Eyrie

G'day readers (if there are any of you left),

 

I oughta apologise for not having blogged lately, or indeed this season, I guess. After I moved house a couple of months ago, it became a lot more awkward coming back to Mum's to use the internet. We still don't have it at home - give it another two or three weeks. All my files are in limbo at the mo, too, cos Mum's now up and gone to Colorado for a year. With Dad & Jacq having moved to Kangaroo Island, I'm now pretty much parentless. I'm not hugely concerned by this, so long as I remain money...ful. Moneyful, that's right. It's a word. Says so right there under my English degree.

 

However, helping this situation: I recently got a job! This year's quest ended on the 27th of December as I tried out for a position at Argo's Deli on the Parade. I'll be makin' sandwiches, doin' dishes and servin' customers as soon as I get back from NCYC. Kez, Steve and I hop on the train on New Year's Eve and head off to Perth for a week and a bit, and no doubt good times will ensue. It'll be cool to see Loiny and Laura there, and meet many new and zany folks I'm sure. I think the whole conference will be just what I need at the moment. This month has been busy: working at the cricket and in the car park at Ingle Farm shopping centre... blerh... let alone Christmas (which was actually pretty awesome). Kez & I celebrated our anniversary on the 11th with a suitably Cold Rock-themed random adventure. Stuff 'n' stuff 'n' stuff.

 

The Ides have played a couple of shows, but we're having a break over Christmas and early January as Bren and I each go away. Plans abound for recording and a rock show in the new year, but that can wait for an official announcement. ;)

 

So it's been quite a year for me. My first year after uni... I have to say it's not what I expected, not by a long shot. A year ago I would've expected to be in a pretty different position by now; but I've moved out, I'm in a cool band (or two), I have an alright job (or two), I have a lovely girlfriend (just one, to clarify :P), a car that works (RIP Billy), and generally, stuff is good. I dunno what's on the horizon, where I'm headed, but I have faith that God'll put me somewhere useful. I know I am gonna start working on my novel again very soon... but that's the last scoop you'll get out of this blog for a while! Have a happy new year, y'all, God bless, and catchya on the flip side, eh?

 

Ciao for now!

 

-P.

I haven't written in this blog much lately. But hey, I have my reasons. For one thing, I haven't got the internet at the mo. Why, you ask? Cos I've moved house, left my ancestral home in Marryatville in search of the purportedly greener pastures of Kensington, about six streets away. I'm living in a townhouse on Bridge Street with my sister Flynn and best mate Brendan, keyboardist in the Ides.

 

It was a pretty big affair: packing everything up, particularly after having lived here at Clapton Road (I'm back to use the net) for eight and a half years, longer than I've lived anywhere else in my life. My new house is the... *counts* the ninth house I've inhabited in my twenty-two years. There are timber floors downstairs, it's all open plan, with very nice new lights and a decent-sized courtyard. It's a bit bigger than all the other units in the block cos we're on the end. Upstairs are the three bedrooms and a bathroom with a rising sun skylight. We've cleared up the bottom floor for the most part, but my room still needs some work... it's a great room though, bigger than my last few, which is nice. There's a window at one end and a glass door leading out to a mini balcony at the other. Woot!

 

I'm suffering slightly from being the housewife at the moment... Bren's at the end of his last year of uni, with all his assignments on top of working four mornings a week; and Flynn works full time, which leaves me to wash dishes, make dinner etc. I don't mind it for the moment; I do have a lot of spare time after all, as I don't work very often (kinda five to fifteen hours a week, mostly on weekends). For the moment, that is. Not having a dishwasher is killing me, though. Meh. I'm teaching myself to play Brendan's guitar, and plan on getting some dialup internet when Optus connects the phone line. And I'm deciding what to do next year: probably not a DipEd, though I'm not thoroughly certain. I could take up writing again and try to get published, but I'm wary about that idea now that I need money even more. Centrelink would love me to disassociate myself with them, or moreover WorkSkil would; I'm starting to believe whoever (Dave Hughes?) said they only want to find me a job so they can take the government funding for doing so.

 

Anyway, that's that in my life at the mo. Nearly... I've been with Kez for ten months today, and tonight I'll take her out to dinner and a gig. Josh Pyke's playing at the Gov. :) If you wanna know my new mailing address, by the by, send me an email and I'll let you know. Ta!

G'day readers,

 

I had an idea the other day. Yes, me, an idea - I know. Quiet, you! I'm thinking of starting a themed blog, possibly here, possibly elsewhere. Although there may be some of you who enjoy the occasional update on all that I might have been up to over the last few weeks, I already write an ordinary, analogue diary which records all of that. If you want to know what I'm doing with my life, then odds are that you'll talk to me sooner or later, whether on MSN, on the phone or in person. That, and/or you won't be especially interested. There is Ides news, yes; but that is why the Ides have a newsletter, and I write that one, too (a secret carefully disguised by my use of the first person plural... I think I may have used to use the third person, but I can't remember).

 

What I'm thinking of doing instead is writing a themed, more creative blog. I've toyed with the idea of writing a fictional one in the past, but that'd be more of a syndicated serial, and what's the point? I reckon what I'll do instead is start writing reviews: of restaurants, venues and bands, maybe movies, places of entertainment, hot chocolates and the like, all around Adelaide. It'll be no less interesting, might prove useful, and would look hella good on a résumé.

 

Tell me what you think. I probably would do it somewhere other than Windows Live, actually. I won't use myspace, cos the layout wouldn't suit. Suggestions? Advice? Opinions? Bring 'em on.

I haven't blogged in a while. I haven't been terribly inclined to do so, thanks to this Windows Live shemozzle. But I have been doing things, and maybe even things that you already know about, but if not, I'll write about them here. Observe:

 

My last entry was four weeks ago. One of the first things I did thereafter was establish a myspace: www.myspace.com/peregrineseyrie. Check it out if you like; though there's not much there. Really it was just a ploy to give the Ides one more fan with minimal effort. ;) A good mate of mine, Ben, who was the guy who introduced me to Christianity, was baptised at Christies Beach on the 6th. That was way cool, and so was going back to his place to watch Veggietales.

 

The next week saw karaoke at Shenannigans to farewell Kez's friend Suse; a couple of shifts at work; a seminar with some FC people; Kez's & my eighth mensaversary; Lise's 21st; and Kerry's farewell (she's off to España). Finally the weather started warming up and the cherry-blossoms came out - huzzah! Spring sprang.

 

On the 15th I hung out with the old Tusmore crew in the city, which was excellent. It's been a while; and it was Ben's birthday, too. On the Wednesday, the first NCBC heat took place back at Shenannigans: the Dream Reality was orright, Nadjeska was great (we'll play a gig with each of them sometime); but Is This Art won cos they were the rock band. Friday the 18th was a masquerade ball for Rubina's 21st: I went with a skin-hugging Batman mask, and Kez had an opalescent butterfly, both of us in maroon and black. Schmick night, and noice band, but I was coming down sick by then. At least I had a haircut. Woulda wound up lookin' like a hippy otherwise. Actually, I like hippies, but prefer to be hip (insofar as I might still use the word 'hip' some years after its use-by date).

 

The Ides have been taking over bits of my life lately. Our NCBC heat was Wednesday the 23rd, and despite fine efforts by Jarrad Kilsby and Nadjeska's Joel Cooke, and dismal attendance by Backlash, we won! Through to the Flinders final next Wednesday the 6th - come along if you're in the neighbourhood. I've also been continuing the mad search for regular work, persistent Weslo shifts notwishstanding. Also, we went to the ice hockey. :) But I've put in my stage two application with The Advertiser; been to Angus & Robertson and a newsagency and all over the place. Inspected a house, too - in six weeks' time (or thereabouts, and geez I'm using some big words today, I'd better blog more often) Bren, Flynn and I will be moving out. But fear not, faithful readers (if indeed you are plural): we'll be getting broadband, so none of that no-more-Peri face, whether it's smiley or frowny.

 

Am I making sense? *shrugs, moves on*

 

More recently, I've been to Victor with Kez, visited Dad & Jacq seeing as I won't be able to see him on Fathers' Day this Sunday. As of tomorrow, I'll be dropping off the face of the earth for nine days - working at the Royal Adelaide Show. Every single day, 5am, that's FIVE A.M., til 2pm. So I'll be up at 3:45 every morning, hopefully bar the morning after the NCBC, because after the heat I only got home at 2am, and that doesn't leave a whole lotta time for sleeping. The Flinders final falls directly in the centre of what would otherwise be my sleeping time. And of the nine days I'll be working, around six or seven of them will be purely raising money for the bond for when I move out... but such is life, n'est pas? At least the Ides are getting gigs - there are at least two more on the horizon - and I might have some left over for this whole going to Loiny's 18th and NCYC thing... :P

 

But hey, it's not that gloomy. I've got Kez. I've got a bass. I've got God. I've even got milk, for that matter, though I might have to buy some today, especially if I need it for the apple and cinnamon muffins I want to make. Speaking of things I ought to make, add 'tracks' to that list - ciao for now!

...and now my space is an ugly mustard yellow. For now. Maybe I'll change it.

 

See also 'Dear MSN': http://houseofartifice.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!443602BAA19BFC77!515.entry.

 

Huzzah! And you'll never believe where it was. For the uninformed, this is the resolution of a longstanding quest... let me explain.

 

In 1997, in Year 8 tech studies, I made a keyring out of red, white and blue acrylic. At a high school where uniformity extended even to backpacks, such keyrings became marks of identity for when you were facing the other way, or when you left your bag anywhere; but even so, I held onto mine longer than most. It became an extension of my friendship with my best buddy Ben, who would steal it at every opportunity and hide it somewhere hard to find or get, or sometimes just keep it from me (Steve joined in later). At youth group once, we used this habitual occurance as the best example of the verb 'to covet'. The P hung on my bag for most of seven years: it went through high school with me, came around the world, and eventually made it as far as uni. There came a day when I grew so angry at Ben's antics that I threw it at him... except I missed, and it broke against the front wall of the church (just behind the altar). I superglued it up, but decided to retire it from active service a short while later. For some time, Ben and Steve continued to nick it, until one day a year or more ago, the P disappeared. I accused them of having hidden it, but if they had, they couldn't remember, because it was some time before I noticed its absence. I was vaguely heartbroken, as the P was as special to me as my old car Billy. But months passed, and life went on.

 

Just this afternoon I was cleaning my room (which is amazing enough in its own right). I was moving some stuff around on top of my desk, as I wanted space to put some books up there. I decided to take down the Star Wars spaceship I've had up there for some time. Kez later saw it on my bed and asked what it was; I showed her that it contained one of my oldest Star Wars figures, a pelvis-thrusting Luke Skywalker. To get to the action figure, you have to pull the cockpit out of the rest of the spaceship; and there, underneath the cockpit, deep in the heart of that T-16 Skyhopper, was the P!

 

Yaaaaay!

I know it does y'all a fat lot of good for me to write about all these gigs I'm playing after I've played them... maybe I should do something about that sometime... although Bren and I might play some open mic nights unannounced sometime soon, so I have little confidence in my doing so. :)

 

So the Planes, that other supremely cool band I'm in, played to the assembled masses at All Nations on Sunday night. The Planes are a Christian band, for all you looking at me and demanding to know why you weren't informed; but for that matter, I probably have informed you I was in another band, and you may have forgotten. I do tend to focus on the Ides, though. Anyhoo, the Planes - Rick, Rach, Dazzler, J-man and I - have all sorts of acoustic rockety fun. We had a great two-tiered stage setup the other night, and these things are important. We even learnt a new song and played it; Rick & Rachel said they were gonna do one, and the rest of us decided it would be more fun to join in. So we did. The Planes are another group signed (I use the term loosely) to the Jemima Likes label a few guys are trying to start up.

 

Another venture started up by said guys was a Halo 2 LAN on Saturday... now, call me nerdy, but it was *awesome* fun! You haven't lived until you've played 14-player CTF on Coagulation... *ahem* But I won't rant on. You either empathise or you don't. Toodles!