Day 122: Friday not so fun.

Don't get me wrong. Fridays are great days. And really mine has been fine. But there's a point on a Friday afternoon when it's not fun to be a non-drinker. In olden times, the four o'clock-ish crack open of wine or beer would signal the end of toil and the beginning of freedom. Even if you were still working, the fizzy-bubbly would make it all a little looser and more fun. When you're teetotal, there is no freedom-signaling treat. All of the drinks and snacks the world has to offer you are kind of tired by Friday afternoon. And sugary drinks tend to add to tiredness rather than help get your groove on. So while others open the floodgates to weekend oblivion and get pumped for the parties and bars they're soon to hit, I have to wrestle my energy levels into a state where I can face the same parties and bars already full of drunken people. It's tiring enough in itself, let alone doing the actual partying. But you can't hermit your life away, so I will slick on some fresh lippy and get the freak on the party trail. One tonight, one tomorrow and plenty of other freaky activities in between. Time to bring it. So let's go baby.

Day 121: perfect ain't pretty.

By now you may be aware that I have a thing for perfectness. My entire life can at times seem like a never ending tick list of perfections; ways to eat, number of times to exercise, vitamins to take, tightness of hair cut, colour and neatness of nail polish (and level of unbitteness of nail), zitlessness of skin, bass practice done, diligentness of pursuing one's creative dreams etc. etc. Unlike just about all of the time, lately I have actually been managing to achieve an almost perfect perfectness report card. And while it 1. gives me nerd-like satisfaction and 2. has actually been making me feel pretty awesome (due to lots of the tick boxes being about healthiness), I have discovered that it's not in fact that cute to other people, or even to me particularly. Nobody likes a person who does everything right. Quite a lot of the time people like people who do things wrong. Wrongdoing by others tends to make you feel better about your own crappy elements, and it has an attractive who gives a fuck aspect to it. Rebels are always more hankered after than the well-behaved and law abiding. And as much as not drinking is rebellious, it's not the kind of rebellious that turns people on. All of this though, gives me a problem. I know that hyper perfect behaviour isn't attractive, but at the moment it is making me feel really good (to the extent of feeling brain highs after eating my meticulously balanced meals - see, even that made me sound like an abominable human being). What's more, while the perfectness of the behaviour tends to make people puke, it is, I think, serving to make me physically prettier (clearer skin and eyes, thinner all over, better muscle tone, convincingly smug(ly) smile). Then again, ironically, even that grosses people out - "Look at how revoltingly glowing you're looking this morning!". And I certainly haven't got a train of suitors fighting to get a piece of my shiny, healthy halo. Of course, stinking of booze and sporting dark eye circles and grey, zit marked skin probably wouldn't help much in that department either. So whatever. If being a perfect nerd is what makes me happy then so be it. Who gives a shit about pretty anyway.

Day: 120: oh wow!

So can I please go and hang out with Phoenix et al now for the rest of my life? They were freakin awesome. I was particularly mesmerised by their drummer, an amazing powerhouse of rollicking, fat, pumping rhythm, and the loose hints of jam offered up by their lead guitarist were also satisfying. For some inexplicable reason too (apart from the fact that they're totally cool), Australia seems to have gone mad for this happy band of Frenchies. Somehow, the land famous for the squawks of Jimmy Barnes and the no-nonsense rock of ACDC, has fallen in love with the delicate and arty trillings of a gang of Parisian boys. The crowd was going off. Jumping, screaming, shouting every lyric, even singing sweetly like an enormous children's choir to a pared back version of "Everything". It was quite a thing to be caught up in. And a highly enjoyable show. So enjoyable in fact that I didn't even really think about my own music making at all; I just soaked up the extremely positive vibe. On second thought though, it does inspire me to keep plugging along the musical dream vein, even if only to try and one day score a support slot for Phoenix. Because regardless of how fashionable their support band Miami Horror might currently be, I am quite certain we could blow them out of the water.

P.S. Being a non-drinker at the gig was also rewarding, inasmuch as I avoided being slathered in drink stickiness and pong when the crowd started bouncing. Boing.

Day 119: Phoenix gig.

Tonight I'm going to see my favourite French alt rockers Phoenix at The Hordern. I'm a bit over the Hordern but that's okay. It will be interesting to see how this gig affects my perspective on my own music aspirations. Gigs always have some affect, whether it is producing jealous vibrations, I could do better than that murmurings, oh my God I have no talent whatsoever whimperings, or WOW where the FRICK is my guitar LET'S GO convulsions. Oh, I booked in my first vocal training session too, which kind of freaked me out. What if I get there and can't sing a thing or am outed as a complete musical fraud? I guess these are fears I will simply have to face. Now, to the gig!

Day 118: tired of dicks.

There's a guy at work who has been being a real dick, kind of making sexist comments, or just doing things to cast very competent and quite senior females in a subordinate or junior light. It's totally outdated. Then at yoga tonight, the guy next to me felt the need to rearrange his bits after every posture. It was gross. I know lots of men and boys who are not dicks at all, but today I just seemed to be confronted by quite a lot of the ones who are. Never mind. I will leave them to live with their dickishness. Meanwhile my exercise step-up is going swimmingly. I jogged in the morning and yoga'd at night and then ate a nauseatingly healthy dinner. Jeez I'm even starting to gross myself out with all this mega-piety. Maybe the real dick around here right now is me.

Day 117: long way to go.

At yoga today my teacher asked me how the non-drinking was going, and how many more months I had to go. She was just about to complete FebFast, a month off of her own, and said she'd found it pretty hard. As you know, over the last few days I've had the odd pang. It's okay. Today was pang free and I felt fine. But it did occur to me that at just under a third of the way in, I've still got some miles to cover. It also registered in my pea-like brain, that to keep things interesting maybe I should try a bit of a different emphasis on things. So far, I've pretty much been trying to just do the normal stuff I do minus the alcohol; a sort of casual approach. But why not get a little more rigorous with things? Or am I being a freak? Yes, maybe I am. But if I'm sober and have no excuse to be not doing things, then why don't I start using my time a little better? I am going to start by stepping up the exercise. Moderate exercise is fine if you're hung over half the time, but if you're a clean machine I think it's reasonable to expect more. Jogging in the mornings is what I'm thinking, with yoga of an evening to keep me sane (or push me over the edge as the case may be - kidding. Yoga is my mental superhero rescuer, and can always be relied upon to make me feel good.). I am also going to book in my vocal training sessions and start using at least one of my weeknights or weekend days more productively. And, and, and everything. No, that will do. My constant mistake is overloading myself with expectations and responsibilities. It's a recipe for failure. Exercise and vocal training (and liver cleansing and working) is all I need to worry about this week. And if I concentrate on that, maybe it won't bother me so much that I have over eight months to go. (It's actually not bothering me right now, so what's the big deal?)

Day 116: Mardi Gras.

Ah thank Christ. I am now safely barricaded in my happy tower away from the slather on the streets outside. It is Mardi Gras tonight, Sydney's biggest, gayest party of the year. But what I just fought my way through was not some throng of camp, drag and androgynous merriment. Rather a sketchy mob of hetero youth vomiting their way along piss spattered streets lined with stalls selling chicken skewers and dodgy asian pork balls. Tasty. Never mind. As the parade had passed by hours before, I'm presuming these were the underage dregs left behind the more spectacular revelers, since moved on to any number of after parties. For my own part, and as some small gesture towards the theme of the night, I went to a screening of A Single Man (Tom Ford's visual love affair, heavily dosed in homosexual male gaze - not a bad thing. It was a beautiful film.) with friends, then went to my favourite place in the entire universe right now, The Big Rig. This last part of the evening had nothing whatsoever to do with celebrating gayness, and more to do with pleasing our ears (best music ever, all the time and loud), our eyes (hot wait staff, the chef is a spunk) and our taste buds (chilli fries, guacamole, macaroni and cheese). Oh, and I should probably fess up about a couple of things: 1. Having consumed the aforementioned chilli fries and some corn chips and two Cokes, I kind of fell off the liver cleanse wagon. 2. I really wished I could have had a beer or a glass of red. I didn't of course. But it's been a bit of a theme the last couple of days. I have just been wanting to be able to relax and enjoy an alcoholic drink in a nice moderate and adult way. But as stupid as it seems to not be allowed to, not drinking is the only rule and it's one I'm going to stick to. I think probably adding the liver cleanse on top has been maybe one step too far. After all, when you're beating yourself up over the damage two cokes and some corn chips are going to do to your liver, you're kind of losing the plot. I will get back on the path to purity tomorrow, with liver-friendly eating and some yoga. And meanwhile I will quite happily go to sleep, far from the rat-faced crowds stumbling around on the streets below.