“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say goodbye, hello! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late! -White Rabbit”

Hey Everyone

Yes, I said I would write every month.. But, you know, December and January goes so fast! I’m sure no-one noticed anyway. It’s Summer.

So, this tardy report comes to you in the middle of that runt of a month (and oddly spelled at that), February. February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual ‘Februa’ held on February 15 in the old Roman calendar. Historical names for February include the Anglo-Saxon terms Solmonath (mud month) and Kale-monath (named for cabbage).

Thanks wikipedia. February is also the month that you realise you have been shot out of the calendar-canon into the new year and you’ve gone a great distance without knowing it. “It’s almost March!”

Jen S and I have just moved back to the city a few days ago, as we are starting school and needed to be closer in. There is so much stuff to do that I have decided to distract myself with greater concerns, that is: The universe can’t exist.

I know I shouldn’t be trying to get my head around quantum physics on a year 10 education (I did year 12 but only on a farcical level) but I can’t help it.

If the Universe is expanding, what is it expanding IN to? It has to be ‘something’, perhaps a universe on another plane? And what is that universe contained in?

It actually has no answer. Our existence is impossible. There was ‘the void’, but even that void had to exist first.. Did it?

So where to from here? My animal brain cannot handle such infinite concerns, and yet I feel like there’s nothing else to think about. It’s a great way to get out of doing the washing up too. Why wash up when the Universe can’t theoretically exist?

Thank God I have a dog. People like me need dogs to survive.
I may as well make the announcment now: We are adding to the family. His name is Dusty. He is an abandoned 6 month old kelpie/blue heeler from Hepburn Springs with a black coat and kind green eyes. Pictures to come.

I am still being severely pounded by Saturn (I turned 28 last year, Saturn Return time) and because I don’t know who I am anymore I can’t say when another album will be out! I have the songs, just don’t have the means or ‘fire’ right now. It will probably pop out soon though.

There is an important rally on the 23rd of Feb called Save Live Australian Music - Check out details at http://www.slamrally.org/

I suppose because our existence doesn’t make sense, all that’s left to do is fully enjoy it. Lots of love to you out there.

Laura

Ahoy there,

Sorry about the lateness of this, the third Regular Jean. I am writing to you from Daylesford Library. I have been living in Daylesford for the last 6 months or so.

You might know Daylesford from the series of tourism ads starring Isobel Lucas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdmDGVoxjIE

The extras playing locals are shown as peasants tilling the fields and stuff (that’s me in the red headscarf picking mulberries). It would have been more realistic to show the locals tending the gardens to their bed and breakfast businesses or hippy single mums running down the street after half naked children with pixie hats, but it wouldn’t have looked as good. And Isobel Lucas would more realistically be a personal assistant in her mid 50’s on a hens weekend, but that wouldn’t have looked that great either.

We’re a visual bunch, us humans.

Hrmmmmmm. Things are slow here. Lots of room for thinking, pondering, and general thought making. Oh my God, I sound like Winnie The Pooh.

I haven’t done much music in a while. It’s times like these where you forget your identity as a ‘musician’ or ‘songwriter’ and you have to look at what’s left… A silly girl that loves her friends and family, partner and dog. Could be worse eh?

I also love Christmas. It’s embarrassing, but I’m shameless. Give me a carol by candlelight, the smell of a pine tree, and some tinsel and life couldn’t get much better.

Singing carols is how I learnt to sing.. That reminds me.
At the end of year talent quest in year 6, my mate Kristy and I played (she on the clarinet, me on the tenor saxaphone) some hot renditions of some classic christmas hits, complete with santa hats for a bit of cheeky showmanship flair.

Of course the popular group won by MIMING ‘Boom Shake Shake Shake The Room’ by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. It was a travesty.

Later that December I was voted ‘Nigel of The Year’ as my final honour at primary school. It wasn’t a good month. I was slightly comforted by the fact our school softened the blow by changing it from ‘Nigel No Friends’ (too politically incorrect) to an acronym -

Nutty
Intellegent
Gullible
Eager
Learner. 

It’s pretty funny now, and I’m quite proud to be honest.

Enjoy the scent of the pine, the cicadas, the blurry waves of heat rising from the ashphalt, wilting tinsel on plastic kmart trees, creepy dancing santas and muzak carols while you shop for last minute presents from Coles. ‘Strayan Christmas.

Signing out from Daylesford Library HQ..

Laura

Dear All

Here I am again.

Well, with the first edition of this ‘series’ I got away with not knowing what to say alright, but I can’t really do that on the second can I? I need to be a little more sure of myself, to instill confidence in you, fine reader.

No such luck.

Let us start at the very beginning.. a very good place to start (to quote Julie Andrews in ‘The Sound Of Music’. The woman is a genius. I don’t care if she didn’t actually write that, she should get a Nobel Prize).

Jen and I have a puppy now. We picked him up 2 weeks ago. He was born in a place called Burrumbeet, about 20 minutes out of Ballarat. He spent the first 8 weeks of his life in a dog friendly mediterranean style house in the middle of a paddock with paintings on the walls and a true bohemian lady in her sixties called Ruth and her husband Joe who wears berets. He hung out with his Mum, Rosie, his eight brothers and sisters, his grandma, his aunties, his cousins. His Mum would catch rabbits for him and spew it up for him to eat. We know this because he vomited a weird rabbit alien in the car on the way home.

It was Jen’s birthday yesterday, and we woke up to Samson (that’s his name) vomiting up sticks and leaves, which is his version of fish and chips at the moment. He also enjoys a nice leafy branch kebab and lavender sprigs for dessert. For a palate cleanser he might have some grass, then he’ll follow that up with a weed chaser.

He is the most beautiful dog in the world.

Ok, enough of that. What news?

There ain’t none, to be perfectly honest. For those interested in a new album, be assured, it is coming, all the songs are written… but I am waiting until the time is ripe.
It is a very specific feeling, like catching a wave, you need to save your energy and then start kicking hard just before it breaks.

It’s probably not a great analogy for me to use, as I spent the first seventeen years of my life in a coastal town in NSW being terrorized by surfers. At the beach I would be more likely found sitting in the shallows daydreaming and grabbing handfuls of sand to make spells by sprinkling it in the water rather than actually being active in the surf. Cute for being perhaps, six, but this was in my late teens.

Awkward.

Back to music. We are playing as a duo (Jen on drums, me on electric guitar) in Adelaide soon (November 13th at The Metro with Ned Collette) but apart from that probably won’t play any gigs until next year.

We’re going to pretend to be a normal family, yep, two ladies and a child covered in hair that looks like a labrador, until we stop taking our vitamin C tablets and the touring bug resurfaces in our bodies. In which case we will welcome it with weary arms and a secret smile. Sometimes it’s fun being ill. ADMIT IT!

Love Laura