"For Sale" - a renters nightmare.

Once upon a time I was renting a flat with a friend of mine in a quiet street. We’d spent 12 months there, cleaning, decorating, and making this little slice of property our own when knock, knock, knock the owner of our realestate turned up at our door with a notice of sale letter.

The day we received the for sale notice was the day I lost the feeling of home I’d worked so hard to build. There’s something about having strangers through your living space once a week, looking at you and your house as an investment that creates an icky, dehumanising feeling.

I’m tired of hearing “but that’s just the reality of renting” like it was my choice to rent in the first place. When you’re on a low income it’s your only choice, and because it’s your only choice, the rules are automatically not in your favour. There was also an added level of complexity for a while as this was going on at the beginning of the pandemic/started up once the full lockdown was lifted.

I had to completely change my schedule to match the open houses. Instead of getting much needed post gig rest on Saturday morning, I would get up early to clean the house. Technically according to the law I didn’t have to do this, but having strangers walking through my house if it were unclean would have created an extra level of embarrassment.

The disruption to my life made it feel like a part time job, a job that I did not get paid for. Sure, I could have asked for a rent reduction, but I shouldn’t have had to. The disruption should have been acknowledged by the party in power, and should have been offered freely.

I’m now living in stable housing, which I’m incredibly grateful for. I’m living with my partner, and we’re renting from his parents (who are lovely humans). Saying that, every single rental should be as stable as the one I get to live in now and I dread the day we have to re-enter the private “real estate” rental market.

About the outfit: This is a dress I made many moons ago (and a pattern I’m currently refining to eventually sell). I really enjoy the yellow polka dot echo in my socks.

Triple J Lowest 200

Every year Australias favourite ABC affiliated radio station hosts a popularity contest. It’s kind of like the charts, except this is based solely on what people vote. I suppose it’s a yearly musical election of sorts!

Anyway, after this countdown, there’s usually a debate of some kind on a musicians facebook group I’m part of. The TLDR is usually along the lines of Triple J is garbage and everything voted in is garbage and everything is garbage. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that many of the hot tunes aren’t my cup of tea, but just because I don’t like tea, doesn’t mean other people don’t (and I have no right to determine what tea anyone should drink!)

This year the debate got me thinking - Triple J is all about supporting Australian Independent artists, and they have access to this massive data base of votes. Why not have a follow up show showcasing the music that ended up at the bottom?

There are pros and cons to this - The biggest obvious pro is a segment like this would support the unknown underdog artists that would never make a blip on a mildly mainstream musical list like this. It would literally be career changing.

Saying that, there are also two main con’s I can see. The first is who’s to say there aren’t 1000 tunes that came equal last? The other con is the lower scoring tunes may not be of a professional standard, which is empirical for the success of a show such as this (and also to uphold the reputation of Triple J, and the support they provide for artists trying to break into the scene)

Perhaps instead of a “pure” lowest 200, they could do a curated show based upon tunes in the lowest 200? I don’t know, I don’t have access to their data base, nor the social capital to make this happen!

Speaking of bands, I’m #representing the Button Collective in this shoot! This is my modified Button Band Shirt that was once thrust upon me before a gig we played in Bellingen. Twas a fun night, and tis a comfy shirt! You can listen to our tunes below (and yes, in this case, totally judge our music by a photo shoot ;P)

When life won't let you take a break.

(Unrelated to the topic at hand:For the first time in a while I forgot to take a shoe photo! I hate it when this happens :( Oh well, it happens) 

I want to talk about burn out today, specifically when you have to work through burn out. Unfortunately it's pertinent to my mental state at the moment, and has been on and off for many years.

To me, burn out feels like molasses. It's an all encompassing feeling, which makes me physically and mentally feel slow and gluggy. The pit of anxiety and overwhelm likes to rear it's ugly head and I also tend to become withdrawn, irritable, and flitter between too much and too little sleep. For those who have experienced burnout before, this may sound really familiar (that being said, your feelings may be different) and for those of you who haven't experienged it, consider yourself lucky ! :) 

If I worked a normal job, to cure these feelings I would take a few days off to destress, cut down on my commitments and focus on doing things I enjoy. This becomes twisted when big parts of your job fit into "this makes me feel good and helps me to destress". For example, I find the pre gig responsibilities and post gig aftermath pretty stressful sometimes, but the act of playing a good gig takes away the bad feels like nothing else. I also rely on the gig for income, further complicating the situation. 

More often than not, this leads me to working through my burnout. I know it's not healthy and that it probably keeps the sads around for longer, but the alternative for me (which is immediately cutting back on creative projects) is far more scary. 

There have been periods of burnout which have ended in spouts of depression where I've been unable to work work to even 50% capacity for (seemingly) endless months. It's almost like once I loose the momentum it's 200% harder to return to my fullest productive self. 

Over the last 2 years, I've experienced a couple of burnouts which I've worked (as in not slowed down my job worked) my way through. As such I've developed a couple of coping mechanisms. My favourites are:

1) The brain dump. This is basically a "to do list, but it also includes human things such as "take some time out" "don't forget to breath" and "you don't need to worry/panic". For these lists I also assign different tasks to different days so I don't feel like the full list in one days work. 

2) Talking to friends/making last minuite plans. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how important friends are. I've recently reconnected with my closest buddies/found some amazing new friends after a really awful breakup earlier this year. Without these people to hang with, I would find myself staying in and wallowing much more frequently. (Saying this, once I return to "normal" I still seek out their friendship, it's just when I'm feeling crappy, I tend to not see anyone at all for weeks at a time and disappear off the face of the earth!) 

3) Making a conscious effort not to beat myself up about productivity. If you can remember back to this year, this has been my only New Years resolution, and I've been doing pretty well at it! One of my mantras has become "you can only get what you have done today, done today". Whenever I feel myself slipping into "work guilt" I say this, either in my head or outloud. While it doesn't immediately solve the issue, it does help to calm my brain and make the feelings less strong/easier to work through. Along the same vein, every time I do a thing that's not feel sad and watch youtube I give myself a proverbial pat on the back. Whatever I'm trying to do may be small and insignificant, but the fact I did it, feeling like this is an absolute miracle. 

4) I try to remember this feeling isn't forever. This helps to keep the burnout sads from becoming existential (which is a whole other layer of weird). 

I'd like to conclude with something positive, but it's hard for me to think positively when i'm stuck smack bang in the middle of burnout. Real talk: Every time I "recover" from burnout I tell myself "this is the last time" but it never is. I suppose I'm scared that this cyclical feeling will continue my whole life. I'm also scared that one day the feeling will just swallow my whole (woah, that got dark quickly). That being said, I see so many people who are older than me functioning like humans should. I'm sure they've all been through periods like this, and look at them! Mental health. It's certainly a thing. 

LASTLY! I'd like to call your attention to my mailing list! https://mailchi.mp/edf9944672b3/the-emerald-ruby-mailing-list-signup It's a thing I have now because I don't trust the algorithmic gods to deliver the stuff I make to the people who want to see it! I'll be starting it up once I get back from my July tour, so if you'd like better access to my online life, feel free to pop your email in the thing! :)