Fuck Yeah Rochester

I am very pleased to note that Rochester (baby) is upping the ante in the awesome stakes. Not only have two new vintage stores opened up in the last week (yay), a friend has opened a new bar/restaurant (which I have already graced with my supremely drunken presence – oivay) but our favourite café is now hosting night time gigs with wine. And beer. And music.

So I am going to dedicate a little corner of my much loved but under-utilised blog, to the amazingness that is Rochester. It took me the best part of a year to not hate that I was living here, but you know, fuck it! It’s better to love the place you’re in, rather than spend your life wishing you were somewhere else. If you just scratch the surface, just a little bit, you’ll find amazingness that you thought only belonged to people who were cooler or richer or more interesting than you. Not so, sir.

This Friday 16 September, The Deaf Cat Café (the aforementioned favourite café) is playing host to Don Gallardo, ‘a Nashville-based singer/songwriter who unites introspective lyrics, gritty twang, and honey-warm vocals, producing a rootsy, personal sound that exists between the boundaries of Americana, Folk, and 70’s classic rock.’ 

I don’t know about you, but that shit sounds right up my fucking alley. I’m there. SO freaking there. I’m going to take pictures, so stay tuned folks. Sit back and enjoy the magic.

I do my best…

Not to be a jerk. You know, I really do. But I read some blogs today and I found myself just thinking ‘oh do shut up’ and ‘that outfit actually looks like shit’. I can’t stand it, I must be in a bad mood when even the delicious blogs do nothing for me now. But this isn’t really about me having a whinge. I know why people are driven to blog, because it’s about the writing. I want to write too, I want to share my enthusiasm with people too. So I am as narcissistic as the best of them. As enthusiastic (shame on me, hey) as the best of them.

My enthusiasm at the moment is music. Not even current music! I am verging-on-embarrassingly oblivious to what is being released right now. The kind of oblivious where somehow you still know the words to all the shit songs, but the actual good music passes you by. For shame, Sam, for shame.

I am enthusiastic about sweet 70’s shit. I’m talking Crosby Stills Nash and Young, I’m talking Elton John baby, I’m talking Carole King, James Taylor and Joni (oh Joni!) Mitchell. I am all up in that shit’s grill, lemme tell you. You can even throw a bit of Dolly Parton in there, and I swear I wouldn’t mind! I just bought a record player, and since we don’t have a TV that works, as soon as I get up the morning and as soon as I come back from work of an eve, it goes on. And on and on and on. It seems the childhood habit of playing things over again obsessively has yet to pass. Luckily for my sister, it’s no longer her that is the victim. Luckily for the BF, I’m no longer obsessed with the theme from Dawson’s Creek.

So there you go. Fuck yeah enthusiasm!!

On the new flat…

The Boy and I have recently moved house into our first home alone together in over a year. That doesn’t seem like so much, but before we left Australia, we’d lived alone and it’s a huge shock to the system to learn to share again.

The worst part of it all was that I’m too much of a scaredy puss, and I hate confrontation. It got to the point where I would run into another room when my flatmates came home. My Dad came over from Aus and in the first two days I saw him on the patio having a drink with one of the boys, and soon after began force feeding him steak. Why couldn’t I have those sociable genes?

Even worse than all that, I hate the idea of someone not liking or being annoyed at me, so I found myself almost constantly in a state of can’t-be-bothered-to-do-the-dishes/oh-my-god-don’t-hate-me, that I found it hard just sit and be.

But now I can. And it is bliss.