To Rose:

I had a flash of you saying 'well, how crazy are you?' while having my sesh.

My response: 'I'm the sort of crazy you don't want to get involved with.'

I'm poison. I ruin people's lives, or at least, I leave a trail of destruction and heartbreak in my wake. -

That's how it feels being the trannie. Even though I realise I'm a legend (now), that's very new.

While being the outcast who everyone hated -- that's my life. I miss Italy: I felt I belonged better over there.

It's funny: people who have a crush on me usually emphasise my masculine qualities. As one of my journals said, people preferred soft guy to hard-as-nails trannie.

But then, you're tall. Like, really tall. B is slightly taller than me, but Jane and I are the same height.

-

I'm very pleased that people liked the Dak films. That as a whole felt like a vindication of my faith in the guys that the cause was worth fighting for. As for selling them: I'd like to, but I think that's a face-to-face discussion, and I'm not sure if TVNZ are the right people to sell them to. I'd like to license the clips, but there's TV3 clips too. I have ideas about the post-production flow. I do plan to upscale and grade the footage, once I have a new laptop, plus fixing the titles. -

But yeah, that's pretty much it for me re: acting. I wouldn't say A.M. is dead, but I've definitely got other priorities than singing karaoke. It's fine to be bummed about that, for the fans, and maybe she'll return one day. Thing of it is, Amanda Riddell wants the she pronouns too. I'm enjoying my beard, but it's not quite ready to photo. It's gingerish, but the colour is still emerging -- the acid photo caught it well, but that mirror is flattering. I'm not all that keen to do more. I thought Sue was a worthwhile piece of casting for myself, but I prefer the idea that my short stories might be things that real directors would want to adapt. -

I want to focus on music. It's just figuring out what to focus on: I'm most of the way there with Shipwrecked, but that's not academic, and I'm not really interested in academic music. -

I do want to write concert pieces, though. That's something that really interests me -- like a string quartet or a chamber piece, but that's difficult to do (even in a town as fertile as Wellington).

-

I'll be honest: I genuinely think Wellington has one of the best music scenes on Earth. Peter Walls certainly thought so -- he likened Welly to 18th century Vienna.

It's got every style, and most of the players are good. I'm too picky, though: I'm looking for the best players whenever I get a session together. So a session which had The Troubles and Neil Billington and Salina (for the calling.. that was a phrase I wrote for her) and Aidan and Ruby and Simon wouldn't be cheap.

Plus I'd need an epic keyboard player, and a few more folkies to recreate the Bush singalong tracks, plus a full orchestra session for Pan's Preludes.

And an accordion player. I'll probably fake the percussion with synth, and I'll also be working on the synth tracks for things like A Glacier Melts and whatever Pandora's song ends up being (I want that to be a synthpop song).

Scoring sessions are cheaper than putting together live performances, and I want to exploit that by having some really radically different instrumental combinations.

Playing the studio, as they used to say.

But yeah, I'm not so sunny about the musicals scene in Wellington. ChCh was tighter, and I reckon that's cos NASDA was there. -

It took ages to find a Rachel who had the right qualities to make the movie. But yeah, it could have just as easily been Lauren.

If I'd been the Muscle, it would've been Lauren. Yeah, but I thought she liked me back, and that only happened after she started playing piano for me.

I wish I'd felt I could have pursued the relationship and finished the cycle, but I think I was right that if I'd made love to Lauren the sexual tension in the piece would've evaporated.

-

That's what I love about the cycle: it's so tense. But beautiful -- I think as a queen thing it was really cool, and that wouldn't have been true about a version with Phillip.

He could've done it. He is a good rock singer too, and has those notes in his rock voice. I've heard them - he hit the high D a ninth above middle C for fun once while rehearsing.

It's funny: Phillip thought my voice was very distinctive. While I think B wishes it was a pure opera voice rather than the whole jazz singer thing.

-

See - I figured Chloe might read because I'd met her a few times, whereas I thought the idea of all the industry pros reading was far-fetched.

Guess I was wrong...