A post! A post!

Today has been the happiest I've felt within myself for about three weeks. Thank fark for that. I'm still not... well, I still (and maybe never will? heh heh) don't have my $#it together in o-so-many ways.

The Pram's Album Show on radio 2MCE-FM today was, as my great friend Donna observed (listening-in live online) : "Great Show Malster, abso bloody lutely fantastic". Really nice feedback - no, really. Really helps when the actual music is exciting, captivating, and very memorable - The Beatles playing live in front of 17,000 Beatlmaniacs!

Being involved with radio has been the best thing I've found to keep me feeling focused and goal-orientated, probably the most-so in the last eight years. it's not always as easy as it sounds, but I. Really. Enjoy. It.

This morning, I took myself out to our local water supply, Ben Chifley Dam. After all this 7-to-10 year drought breaking rain we've received across SE Australia in the past two months-or-so, the water has been overflowing down the dam spillway for the first time in about four years. Glorious Spring weather, so quiet out there. I felt really refreshed somehow. Must be that fresh air and sunshine, perhaps?

Check out these photos taken about three years ago out there... now all of the land I was standing on in the foreground of these photos is now meters underwater! YAY!

It's similar out at Carcoar Dam (where I normally try to go sailing)... recently the water level has been horrific at just 4% of capacity! You could literally see the old roadway snaking across the dry valley floor, the water was that low! However, with our recent rain, the water level out there is upto about 30% already... so, what I'm really selfishly excited about is - looks like we're gonna have a Sailing Season this year (the first one out there for like two or three years!!!) YEAH!

Gotta literally dust-off the little sailing dinghy, make sure it hasn't been eaten by rats (no, don't laugh... it happens out here, bugger it!), and park it out at the little Club property out at Carcoar (50 kms / 30 miles away). Hopefully, with sailable water out this way again for the first time in two-to-three years, we'll start seeing sailors and boats start appearing out of mothballs coming out of the woodwork out here. Great!

Oh... one of the huge dams out this way, Lake Burrendong (which is, when full, something like 3-1/2 times the size of Sydney Harbour!!! No, seriously!), is actually overflowing at its dam spillway for the first time in like seven years! Boats (and sailors) of all shapes and sizes will begin to appear out-of-nowhere now, I'm sure of it.

Moving house has been a nightmarish experience for me, in so many more ways than one. I've absolutely hated the whole experience, and have been seemingly-prevented from finding anywhere to call 'home' without jumping thru outrageous hurdles in the process. Fark this. it's been truly awful... words cannot being to explain.

Having the Black Dog barking deafeningly loudly in your ear sure hasn't been helping either. Health-wise has been nightmarish as well... on-going tests for possible cancer (yet again) certainly haven't helped silence the Black Dog either. Eight years of living hell has just finally started taking it's physical toll on me as well. I lost my emotional and spiritual wellbeing years ago already... sheesh! (For those who simply do not/will not appreciate what ongoing depressive disorder is all about, please do not judge me. I don't act/do things deliberately to seek sympathy or emotionally manipulate people, you know... honestly). If you want to know what it's like being me, try walking in my shoes for the past eight years. They're bloody uncomfortable, let me tell you!

After I quit the jazz sextet Glen and the Zen Men the other week, out of pure frustration, I've literally heard nothing at all from the band leader. Not a peep, finding out if I'm OK, asking me why etc etc. Nothing. Now - THAT really hurts. When you put 100% into a musical project, and get absolutely nil-zip-no results at all out of it, it rips my beating heart out, it does it does. All the others in the Zen Men have chased me up in one way or another to see how I'm doing. But not the actual band leader. He's not being nasty or anything - he simply has NO people-skills at all. But ferk... it totally ripped my heart and soul out leaving that band, and I'm feeling wholly empty afterwards. Feeling that 'I won't be particularly missed' hurts like all ferk as well... it may not be true, but that's still how I'm feeling.

Thankfully tabla-player and drummer Keith has been a life-saver for me, and something of a steadying influence in my mental turbulence lately. We've simply shared some great nights over some great food, but just basically hanging out together and listening to some amazing 'world music' together. Thank you Keith - you're a life saver. Thanks for listening and just "being", with no agendas.

Peas be with ewe
Cyalayta,
Mal :)

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