P.S. This is what I look like.

And then?

I made another rash decision. I decided to start my new blog immediately. It's called No more pissing around. (I went off the other name.) To find out how my first night back on the piss went, and how all my hairbrained schemes and adventures work out (I know it's meant to be harebrained by the way, but I prefer the vision of a brain being replaced by an airy ball of hair instead of with the tiny offerings of a small animal's skull), please (pleeeeeease) follow me at nomorepissingaround.blogspot.com

Farewell my favourite humans,

Love, as always,

Claire.

(Why am I being so dramatic? I'm totally gonna see you on the other blog.)

Day 365: time to celebrate.

Are we where I think we are? Can this really be my 365th day off the piss coming to a close? As I left work this evening I couldn't help feeling a little bit ridiculously excited - not for the ensuing alcohol, but for the fact that for once in my life I'd stuck to my guns and finished something. Can you remember what I was like way back at the very beginning? A pitiful, dehydrated and angry little thing, scared shitless of the prospect of going without wine. Now here I am, 365 days out, and I've bloody well done it. But before we get too carried away with self-congratulation, maybe we should examine a couple of the other things I said way back when; like my hypothesis for example. On Day 2, I hypothesised thus: "by not drinking for 365 days, I will remove many of the obstructions that get in the way of me achieving my dreams. By removing the distraction of alcohol and the fallout that goes with it, my mind and waking hours will be free to be used productively. This new clarity of mind and ability to focus will see me achieve amazing things." Then a few days later, I got specific about what I meant by amazing things: "1. Some tracks on the radio, shop-able on iTunes. 2. A video on youtube and maybe even TV (!) 3. Being in a band that plays great, packed-out live shows and may soon embark on a tour." Woa Mamma, let's break this down. Most of the hypothesis turned out to be completely true. I know I've said I'm incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, but in fact what I've done over the last 365 days is focus pretty solidly on keeping off alcohol, writing this blog, and using my free time productively. And in terms of achieving amazing things, I think that qualifies. Now let's look at the specifics. Do I have tracks on the radio? No. But I do have a heap of demos, a number of which are very close to being radio ready. I also know people who work at radio stations who might help me get them played. So I don't feel like a complete failure on point 1. Now, do I have a video on youtube or TV? Definitely not. But let's take things one step at a time. If the music keeps progressing in the right direction, a music video will come. They're not so hard to make these days. I have every confidence that if I just keep putting one musical foot in front of the other, I will get the video thing across the line. So to point 3. Am I in a band that plays great, packed-out live shows and may soon embark on a tour. No, I don't have a band at all. I just have me. But finally, I think I have reached a point where me might be enough, provided I have a little help from my friends. And now for the big doozy: am I, after My Year Off The Piss, a rock star? Well no, not strictly. But do I feel like one? Hell yes! Have my whole life. I was born believing I had a God-given right to rock. Whether I'm delusional in believing that is beside the point. It's my own happy little reality, and I ain't giving it up. What's more, in completing My Year Off The Piss, I have proven something I suspected for a while: impossible is bullshit. Impossible is the psychobabble we feed ourselves as an excuse for not attempting something we're scared of. To the vast majority of habitual drinkers, taking a year off alcohol seems entirely impossible. It's not. And being a rock star? I hate to disappoint the doubters among us, but no, that's not impossible either. Of course though, life has a habit of not fitting into neat little boxes, so I haven't managed rock stardom in time for the end of this blog. That's okay. I'll be keeping at it. And now I suppose it's time I wrapped this up. To you, for reading, I am eternally grateful. Along this crazy journey, you have been my ethereal force of energy and support, and without you I doubt I would have seen this day. Thank you. Tonight, fittingly, I celebrated with a yoga class. Tomorrow night (a Friday) I celebrate with friends and family over a bubble or two. And so we're done. Do yoga, try sober, and as my Dad always says, love everyone and everything. Peace out.

P.S. If by some miracle you're interested in knowing what happens next, I will be writing another blog (because a love of blog writing was another happy discovery along the way). It won't be exactly like this one (because that would be boring. And ridiculous.). I think it will be called The Next Thing (or TNT for short! Ha ha. Boom!). Tune in here some time soon, and I'll let you know what's up.

Day 364: God has one hell of a sense of humour.

Okay. So I have been trying to remain positive about this, which has been difficult considering I'm actually kind of mortified and totally pissed off. I went to the doctor again today to discuss my annoying liver results. It turns out the liver level that would have been affected by alcohol is way down - which makes sense - but my other liver levels (there are several) that were previously totally fine are now up. I apologise for the boringness and perhaps overly revealing nature of this information, but I thought it was relevant. Why? Because it means that while I thought I was doing everything in my power to be hyper healthy (teetotalism, regular exercise, veganism/vegetarianism), I have somehow done something to bugger things up. Not enormously mind you - my levels are only slightly raised - but something I've been doing has been taxing my liver in a brand new way. You do something to be kind to your liver and unwittingly find a new way to be cruel. Bloody fucking hell. My doctor suggested I could try losing some weight. Yes, good idea. Except that I already exercise pretty much every day, eat weirdly healthy food just about all the time and eat pretty moderate amounts when I do. And let's get something straight: I am not a skinny girl, but I am not a fat girl either. My build is athletic, I move my ass, and I am an extremely health-conscious eater. I could definitely be thinner, I'm just not sure exactly how. Maybe my next blog should be My Year Eating From An Egg Cup, or 365 Tasty Ways With Air. Of course, all this is absolutely brilliant punishment for the anally retentive perfectionist that I am. A year of perfecty, goody-two-shoes behaviour, rewarded with a not quite perfect bill of health. So yeah, I'm pretty pissed. And God's laughing his arse off I imagine, while tucking into his third cream bun.

Day 363: the race that stops a nation.

Every year, on the first Tuesday in November, there is a horse race held in Melbourne, Australia. It lasts about four minutes. But they’re not just any four minutes. They are four minutes of Melbourne Cup magic. For all the palaver that surrounds it, you’d think that cup was full of the elixir of eternal youth or something. Actually it’s overflowing with money, but that’s another story. Anyway, for the Melbourne Cup, Australia stops. It downs tools, puts on suits, frocks and outrageous hats, bets its hard earned cash, and sinks a bucketload of piss. Oh yeah, and enjoys four minutes of heady, racing excitement. It’s all pretty fun actually. The race is definitely my favourite part. And why am I writing about it? Well it’s all happening today for one thing. For another, it was this day last year, and all the truly drunken madness that came with it, that necessitated my taking a year off alcohol. It was the mother of a hangover the next day that finally saw me say, now what was it? “Fuck you alcohol” I believe it might have been. And here I am one year later (give or take a couple of days), the most free from alcohol I have probably ever been in my adult life. It’s worth a moment. (Pause.) As I approach the very end of my self-enforced sobriety stint, I must admit I am a little scared. How will alcohol sit with me after all this time? How will my body and brain react? Will I make a complete cock of myself? Will I just slip back into habitual drinking like everybody else? Or am I just building the whole thing up way too much? Maybe I’ll like it, maybe I won’t. I’ll find out in a couple of days, and whatever happens, I’m pretty sure I can handle it.

Day 362: and then my liver fucks out?

Well this was unexpected. Back in my drinking days I had a blood test for something or rather that came back with slightly elevated liver levels. Considering the quantities of alcohol I used to sink of a weekend, I wasn't surprised, but I made a note to myself to consider cutting back. Then I took a year off alcohol, as you know, and the other day went to get another blood test done, mainly just to see what difference the whole thing had made to my health. And today I found out my liver levels are still slightly elevated. Apparently it's nothing to be alarmed about, and we will do more tests just to make sure, but are you freaking kidding? The one thing I thought I could be sure of after a year off booze was a healthy liver. Does this mean that my past drinking habits have permanently damaged my liver? Or do I have some kind of non-alcohol-related liver issues? Or is it just that I've drunk too much green tea (I just this minute googled a study that suggested green tea polyphenols in highly concentrated doses could damage your liver - who knew? And I do drink a lot of tea.). Well, no doubt my doctor will be able to shed some light on the sitch. But way to wipe the smug sober smile off my face. Blah blah blah I'm so happy, blah blah blah I feel so healthy. Pride, as always, comes before a fall (although, admittedly, "slightly elevated" doesn't exactly constitute a fall from Everest).

Day 361: I am very happy.

If there's one thing that has been an overriding theme of my year off the piss, it is happiness. Happiness of a Monday morning, happiness waking clear-eyed and headed of a Saturday or Sunday morning, happiness even in the face of not completely happy things happening - just happiness in general. And I think there are only really two things to which I can attribute this convincing and enduring swing to the sunny side: yoga and sobriety. Yoga (the Bikram kind in particular) is a magic tonic and curer of multitudinous ills. It has served to level my mind, teach me unwavering resolve, tone and stretch my body, and drastically improve my cardiovascular health and fitness (I no longer get asthma, I can jog pretty easily up a steep hill with next to no training, and I can sing a long phrase without needing to take a breath.). I think if everyone did Bikram even just twice a week, the world would be a distinctly better, happier and healthier place. Alcohol, on the other hand, is a liquid that, while potentially fun, brings with it a wagonload of trouble. For an evening of heady giggles and rubber limbs, we trade stomach trouble, dehydration, bad skin, weight gain, memory loss, brain damage, depression, significant money, and usually some kind of embarrassment stemming from our loose behaviour, not to mention whole sunny days that we miss while sleeping our evenings off. Put like that, surely no one in their right mind would touch alcohol. But we humans aren't always in our right minds. At some point in all our lives we need to blow off steam and do some crazy shit. Which is cool. But having gone from being one helluva crazy bitch on the alcohol front, to being as clean as a fresh fall of snow, and having felt the profound difference it has made to my mental state, body, skin, and general outlook on life, I can tell you I will be picking my moments for craziness very, very carefully in future. People write whole books on happiness and how illusive it is. I can (happily) say I am living happy pretty much every single day (and I sure as hell wasn't before). So if I'm going to mess with that, all I can say is, it had better be bloody worth it.

Day 360: are we there yet?

Last night, while hanging out listening to music with my big brother Nic and my friend Kate, I had a thought. This is what it was: when we humans drink alcohol or take drugs, we do it to take a little holiday from ourselves. We do it to quieten down a nagging list of to-dos, or to soften our abrasive social edges, or to forget about some trouble or stress, or to release ourselves from shyness/boredom/anything we happen not to like; basically to escape from the uncompromising realities that are our unadorned, indelible selves and the brutal little lives we lead. When we are sober, we are forced to face up to the real stuff again; the facts. But often we don't like the facts, and so after a short while of living with them, we feel the need to take another little break. Which makes us feel better - while we're on the break. The trouble though with taking these little alcoholidays, is that they don't do anything to make the real life any better. In fact, they do the opposite - in a kind of double whammy. First, they distract you from doing anything to improve your real life by drugging and debilitating you. Second, they tend to make you feel even worse about your real life when you come crashing back down into it. So you start to hate your real life more and more, which makes you want to escape it more and more. And on it goes. I think they call it "a rut". Now if you're me, eventually you get so sick of life-hating and rut-dwelling, that one magical day you decide to bust yourself out. No more fuzzing out the bad bits anymore with whatever medicating substance, just hanging with the hard bastard that is real life, every minute of every freakin day. And hard bastards tend to punch you in the face from time to time. But once you've taken a few punches, you kind of learn to handle them. Okay so enough with the extended (kind of lame) metaphors. What I've realised is, not drinking forces you to face up to yourself. It forces you to look clearly at the things in yourself and your life that you don't like. And that can be a bit foul. But the beautiful reward that comes with the ugliness, is that by not drinking you also give yourself the chance to do something about it. You are not stuck in some stupor. You can pull your shit together and work on getting yourself somewhere better. And once you realise this, and start to feel the amazing satisfaction that is seeing your life actually improve because of action you have taken, you start wanting to be present in your real life all the time. Why take a break when you've got so much cool shit to get done? Why waste time getting wasted (getting wasted? It's no coincidence we use these words.) when you could be getting somewhere? It's a complete cliche, but at this point in my year off the piss, I feel like I've looked my demons square in the face and, believe it or not, I've made friends with the little fuckers. I know they're there, and I don't need to run away from them anymore. So that leaves me free to get on with doing the things I really want and need to do. Why on earth would I fuck with my own shit at this point, when I have finally freed myself enough to get somewhere, by throwing benders and hangovers in my own way? Okay, now wait a minute, don't freak out. I'm not saying I will never touch another drop of alcohol. But here's how it works: everyone needs a holiday once in a while - a little letting off steam. But you don't get holidays without earning them first. So this coming Friday, I will indeed raise a glass, or two, or as many as is fun and feels good. I'll do it as a celebration of a year of pretty bloody hard work (so much typing!) and the achievement of a goal. And once that's done, I will get the fuck back to work. Because no, my friends, we are not there yet. This part of the journey has only just begun.

Day 359: exciting movements.

Crazy coolness. Remember how I sent my tracks to my record company friend the other day? Well today he got back to me. He thinks they're really good! And he suggested a cool producer I could potentially work with. And then the producer's manager got in touch and asked me to send tracks to him, and now I've sent them. Wahoo! Again, it's a case of will the dude like them, will he want to work with me, and if so, will the whole exercise cost me my unborn child's college fund (I doubt that actually). But it's all good. That's the cool thing about action. You take a tiny step and it starts sprouting other possibilities. You set the movement in motion and the world starts moving with you. It's radical. I love it. It's what makes life so frickin exciting.

Day 358: a song for y'all.

Well, I thought that after all my ranting and blah blah about recording etc, I probably owed you all a tune. This one isn't my own home-recording effort (that one's still in the works), it's one Ben helped me with. I still have to record the vocal again in a proper studio, mix it and master it, but as a demo I think it's pretty ace. But that's just me. Feel free to tell me what you think, if you feel so inclined. Boys and girls, this is Take the ride.

Day 357: an expensive exercise.

I was chatting with my mate Ben the other day about the various trials and tribulations of bandom. One of the things that came up is how frickin' expensive it is to be in one. First there's gear, then there's practice space, transport to and from practices and gigs (which can involve aeroplanes), studio recording, mixing, mastering, pressing CDs/vinyl (if that's the way you're going), design and printing of cover art/posters, photo shoots, not to mention the cost of maintaining your rock 'n' roll image (cigarettes and alcohol alone are enough to suck you dry, and then there are haircuts, shades and black jeans to think about). We're all familiar with the concept of the struggling musician, but these days it's a fair call to expect your local, dedicated band member to be loaded. Not because they're selling shitloads of records or getting paid a lot to play, but simply because these days rich kids are the only ones who can actually afford to devote their time exclusively to being in a band. Without cash support from Mummy & Daddy/Grandma/trust fund, little rock poppet would be having to somehow outlay thousands of dollars on their musical endeavours while only receiving the occasional share of say $100 for a gig. A share of $100 once in a while. Try flying across the country on your own means, putting yourself up in a hotel and taking two days out of your week for a pay cheque of $33.33. Nice maths right? And people wonder why musicians get shirty about them downloading their music for free. Because that's the problem. While it costs you a heap to get any music out there, these days people don't think they should pay anything to listen to it. Naturally there's touring, which can help. People still have to pay for a ticket to enter a venue. But then there's the story of a well known Sydney band landing the coveted Coldplay support slot for part of their North American tour, and returning home afterwards, not richer, but $5K down. Fabulous. The only decent money bands seem to make these days comes from licensing their music to ads, TV shows, movies etc. And that's fine. It's all fine really I suppose. I'm only thinking about it again now because I need to get one of my tracks mixed and mastered. Never mind. I'll find a deal I can stomach, fork out my hard-earned, and happily embrace this labour of love.

Day 356: I'm going to Hawaii.

Yep, today I put my dosh where my moush is and booked a ticket. So it looks like I'm going. But wait a minute, I hear you thinking, I thought she wanted to go to New York? And you're right. But my cousin Charlotte (whom I adore) is marrying her equally adorable Texan boy Ryan in Hawaii. So I'm going there first. I still need to book my flight from Honolulu to NYC of course, but that's a minor technicality. The marble is now in motion. Whee.

Day 355: music action.

Today I sent a number of rough-ish demos to the head A&R guy of one of the world's more famous and enormous record companies. He's also kind of a mate, which helps, maybe. It was mainly with a view to finding some producers to work with. He said he might be able to help on that front. But naturally, being in the line of work he is, he's also going to have opinions on the quality and salability of the material. Scary. It would be a little gutting to find out, in the blink of an email, the tunes I have been slaving over for however long are actually C.R.A.P. But then again, that would only be one opinion (if quite an informed one). Oh well, better to have done something than nothing at all. Now I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

Day 354: what am I aiming for anyway?

My good friend Ben came around today, just to hang and catch up. He's been pretty busy lately with his band, jetting across the country and the like. In fact it seems that certain aspects of the whole thing have been a bit stressful, which is all part of the territory with bands, as I well know. Anyway, it was good to hang out, chat etc, and he gave me some recording tips which should be useful for my recording endeavours. More good times etc. But it got me thinking (really? Surely not again...). I have always had this rock 'n' roll dream, and with it there has always been a kind of moving, living, breathing picture of the life that is the dream. And it seems that no matter how much it is evidenced in my experience, that being a working musician is hard, unrefined slog and that fame is an empty and disillusioning prize, I maintain this idea that somewhere there is a place where everything becomes magically fabulous and the key to getting there is having a hit single (or a hit anything). It occurred to me today that that is a very silly idea. The realities of things are seldom what we imagine they will be (especially when what we have imagined is some kind of unreal fantasyland). Not that stepping onto a stage having thousands of fans screaming your name wouldn't be great. But what the fuck's that about anyway? Some warped ego trip. I guess it just occurred to me that whatever I'm doing musically had better be about the enjoyment of what I'm doing right now, and satisfying my own preferences for musical coolness, rather than trying to get to some make-believe destination, or making choices based on what I think other people will like. Whoa kids, watch out. If this is the kind of mental territory my brain's playing in today, it may not be long until I'm bending spoons.

Day 353: bikinis and thunderstorms.

I'm a little bit obsessed with bikinis. Did you notice? If I remember rightly, quite a long time ago (somewhere close-ish to a year) I wrote an entry on here that was all about torrential rain and my brand new bikini. Did I just spot a weather trend? Could it be that just as we come into almost summer (the time to buy new bikinis), Sydney pisses down with rain? Maybe, whatever. What on earth was I talking about? Oh yeah, today. Today me and my mate Kristie did yoga (ace), got coffees (rad), donned our bikinis (new ones) and lay in the sun on the grass in front of her house (which is right next to some of that sparkly Sydney water I love so much) eating grapes (big, fat juicy ones). And then we went inside and gave ourself facials, and then jumped in the car to head back to mine, at which point the heavens opened and dropped a mega-bucket of rain, thunder and lightening all over the shop. It was frickin cool. (I totally love Sydney's electrical storms.) And now, again, I'm about to do more musical, computerly tinkytonking. I know man, like what's with my life right now? Radical weather, bikinis galore and daily musical love? Living the dream muthaflipper, living the dream.

Day 352: sunshine and music.

Today the sun came to the party and Sydney lit up like the gleaming green-parked and sparkly-watered jewel we all know and love. Now you can knock Sydney for a lot of things, but when it comes to pretty views and an abundance of pleasant outdoor spots, this town is hard to beat. So to celebrate the first convincingly summery day so far this season, and in an unprecedented move, the boys from my pod and I went to the park for a lunchtime picnic. It was just frickin lovely. And then after work, because the day was still out in force (thank you daylight saving) I went to another park with two of my best girlfriends and their totally cute offspring (one of whom is my nephew). And that was frickin lovely too. And now I'm about to do a nice little evening sesh on my music. Does it get better than this? Well probably, but not very much.

Day 351: happiness is...

A warm gun. Just kidding. I can't say my happy place is quite like John Lennon's, although I think he was being ironic... or something. But then again, the thing that is making me happy lately could be described as equally as sick. For me, right now, happiness is being tucked up in bed with my laptop (oo snuggly) watching episode after episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. If you haven't seen this awesome piece of extreme hilarity then I suggest you sort that out kind of now-ish. It's probably not for everyone, but personally I am completely in love. The humour (which is every shade of wrong) produces in me a kind of evil grumbling laughter the likes of which I have never heard come out of me before. It's like somewhere in the pit of my stomach I've been habouring a dark, growly monster that has finally found something uproariously funny. And it's laughing, hard. So what does any of this have to do with My Year Off The Piss? Well, hmmm. LA boy Reuben introduced me to the show (you've met him before). And the characters all run a bar, and spend most of their time half pissed. Is that enough? Oh just go and watch it.

Day 350: 15 days to go.

Holy guacamole. Can I really be only 15 days off a full year off alcohol? I sent out my invite to my first celebratory clink of glasses today. Just a little do with my nearest and dearest to mark the achievement. A bigger party will follow. But it's weird. I'm excited about finishing what once seemed like an impossible mission, but I'm not that excited about the booze. Maybe I'll change my tune when I taste my first sip of Champers. I dunno. It just feels like by going back to alcohol, I'm stepping back into normality, kind of falling back into line with the general guidelines of life on the straight and narrow. That's kind of ironic, considering alcohol's the stuff that gets you twisted. I know a lot of people will be kind of relieved to have me back in the zone, and not doing this weird thing anymore. But maybe I won't feel at home in the zone. Who knows? Maybe I'll just relax about it all, and see how I go, one day, or drink, at a time.

Day 349: my Nanna is cool.

Tonight at yoga I did an exceptionally deep and awesome standing backbend. I freakin love backbends. In other headlines, there was another big earthquake in my hometown of Christchurch (the shakes haven't really stopped since the first big one way back on September 4), which is not good news for the nerves of my family and friends living there. On the bright side though, it did mean I had another nice chat to my Dad and to both my Nanna and my Nod. Both quite impressively in their 90s, they seemed remarkably calm. As Nanna said "You see Claire, we've seen things like this before". I quite liked that. Massive earthquake? Seen it.

Day 348: man this is cool-fun.

Cool-fun. A word from my childhood reserved only for the activities whose pure fun you believed in with the most fluid, natural and unthinking energy; a word reserved, today, for making tunes. I have just finished (reluctantly) another evening of tune tinkering. I literally could have gone on for as long as my eyelids would carry me, but alas I have a job to get up for tomorrow morning (actually, having a job is in most ways a good thing, so I'll retract my alas). Anyway, this is starting to get seriously fun. Making music has never, ever, in any way seemed like a chore to me. Sometimes it's seemed like hard work, sometimes an emotionally and physically exhausting exercise, but I have always actually loved the doing of it. I remember when a friend came down to the studio one time when my last band was recording, late in the evening of an all day session, and wondered at how we could stand having been in the underground, windowless cave for so long. All I could think was that I never wanted to leave, and was there any way I could manoeuvre things so I could be somewhere like this all day, every day. I absolutely love the sensation of layering things up and discovering magic pockets of total coolness as you create and jam stuff out and fiddle around. It's writing, but a very serendipitous kind; the combinations of sounds and notes come together apparently quite by chance. A different mood on a different night could bring out entirely different combinations, so the sounds you happen to get down on any one occasion are really kind of miraculous. So tonight I laid some new parts down and learned a few new things as I twiddled different levels and opened unfamiliar windows and menus. And I think it's starting to sound okay. Little by little I am learning how to smooth out rumply parts and sand down the shrill edges. I'm inching towards birthing something aurally pleasing from this crazy-arse technology. And with any luck I'll have that something ready to play for y'all before my time here is up. I will keep on working. But right now I really must go to sleep.