New Years weekend

On Saturday morning, as I was reading the paper on the balcony, Mich handed me her mobile. Sandra was on the other end.

"Guess what??"
"What?"
"We got engaged!!!"
"Oh my god!!!!! "

This was not a huge surprise, as Lee has been talking about proposing virtually since he met Sandra, but still exciting. I asked all the obligatory "how?" "when?" questions and was genuinely very happy for them. Sandra is an awesome chick and I think she's found someone she's excited about who will make her very happy. She has had some crappy luck in the past with guys, but it looks like Lee is the real deal.

Mich took it quite well considering. I guess she has had a while to prepare herself. She and Sandra are very close, she often refers to Sandra as being her surrogate boyfriend, and they go on "hot dates" together. So you can probably guess that she has had a hard time accepting Sandra's relationship with Lee. Or any boyfriend for that matter.

Anyway, the three of us talked about it a bit, and Mich seemed to be coping quite well. Being the first one to get the phone call definitely helped. She likes to be the most important.

Later we picked up a rental car and drove up to the Sunshine coast for the day. It was a gorgeous day and we had a lovely afternoon on the beach in Mooloolabah before heading back to Brissie for dinner with Kirsten.

Kirsten takes a bit of explaining. She is a very crazy, over the top person with an overt sexuality and an infectious personality. Not for everyone. But definitely for Mich. She has a certain pull over her, which for us is hard to explain.

Over dinner I simply found Kirsten annoying, and enjoyed more chatting with the other random people she'd assembled for her whirlwind Brisbane trip. She was on leave from her work in Sudan with the UN or something crazy like that. A very intelligent, passionate girl. But I just couldn't cope with her exaggerated enthusiasm for everything. And the way Mich became when she was around these people. At one point Mich had a go at Adam which came completely out of nowhere. It was so random I almost intervened, but didn't want to make it worse, so later I took her aside and said "Do you realise just how overly aggressive that was?" I explained what I had seen happen and I think she understood, and appreciated it being pointed out. I shouldn't have to, but if that's what it takes...

From dinner we went to a really bad sports bar with really bad music and really bad dancing. Not good-bad. Just bad.

Adam and I were over it pretty quickly, but we stayed as long as we could handle it for. Mich wasn't really ready to leave, until she noticed Kirsten was outside. Then she practically demanded that we did.

Ok, you've noticed a lot of Mich bashing by now. I guess I need it to be out of my system. Sorry if it is making me sound like a bitch. I'm not really - she's just hard work at the moment! She can be a beautiful, wonderful, fun friend, but sometimes I wonder what happened to those bits.

So... New Years Eve.

We drove in the opposite direction, down the coast to Byron Bay.

We checked into our hotel in Ballina, a very posh one as that was all that was left at the start of December when we booked. Byron fills up very quickly!! It was gorgeous, and with the sun shining in the little courtyard it was almost a shame we had to leave.

By the time we got to Byron to meet up with Sandra & Lee it was kind of overcast. We joined them on the beach anyway, and Lee showed Adam how to skimboard. Such a perfect Adam thing to do!

Another friend of ours, Wilby (her real name is Sarah but everyone calls her Wilby), was also in Byron with three girlfriends. They are all 20-21 years old, and went off to get ready for the party at about 3:30pm. The rest of us sat on the beach for the afternoon, before getting changed in the skanky beach toilet block ready for a big night out.

The nine of us started with dinner at the Hogs Breath (not any of our first choices but try getting a booking for 9 on new years eve in byron bay at short notice!!) and with stomachs sufficiently lined progressed to the main attraction for the night, a 1000-ticket party at Hotel Byron. This place was very well set up for a huge party, with several bars, a huge dancefloor and easy access to the beach. And we had a great time, it was a good mixture of daggy dance music, more current fun stuff, and True Live to top it all off. They were fantastic, a hip-hop band with a string trio, you wouldn't think it would work but it goes off! They played for about an hour and a half, counting in the new year as well. The only bummer was no fireworks. I don't know why there were none at Byron, I'm sure everywhere else in the world has them!! But it was fun all the same. Mich pashed an Adam. Not my Adam of course, but an Adam all the same. We all clapped and cheered when he went in for the first one. She wanted to die of embarrassment. Sort of. I think she kinda enjoyed the attention actually!!

At one point I went to the loo. A very long queue. When I got back Adam grabbed me and told me he'd made some friends he wanted me to meet. I was chatting with them for quite some time, thinking they were random strangers. The girl showed me some pictures of some miniature animals on her camera. A horse as small as a dog. But with a penis the size of a horse. Gross. I thought maybe it was time to ditch these weird new friends and get another drink. Adam came with me.

"Did you work out that I already knew those people?"
"What?!!" Hmm come to think of it the guy had just told me where he worked, and it was the same place Adam used to work in Sydney. I'd told him that, and he'd said "I know". I figured they had already realised that they'd worked at the same place at different times. Duh!!! Of course they were friends back then and randomly bumped into each other tonight. Adam was very happy, because they had never met me before, and had all joked that I was a phantom girlfriend.

By 12:30 Wilby & co were getting rather messy and I was pretty ready to leave. Sandra had been sitting down for the last half hour and I wished I had been. Despite the sensible flat shoe option, my feet were killing me. I found somewhere to sit and wait. Adam was worried about the car, we were parked in a carpark that said no parking after 1am. We didn't want to get a parking ticket, or worse - towed. So the two of us decided to go and rescue the car, and then do laps until Mich was ready to leave or the party was over.

Sandra, Lee and Mich came out not long afterwards. It had been a fun night, but it was time for it to end. The 21 year olds could party till dawn, we'd had enough. And, it had started raining.

The drive back to Ballina was wet, I couldn't wait to have a shower and climb into bed. I was still covered in sunscreen from the beach, plus someone had emptied a drink on my legs near the end of the night. Yuck.

The next day we drove to Kingscliff, where Sandra & Lee were staying with Sandra's family, and spent the day there. It is a gorgeous place, but they were staying at a family resort - read: lots of kids everywhere. Which made sense since they were there with Sandra's little niece and nephew.

We had lunch, I had a go at skimboarding and did a terrific splat on my first go. But got back on and nearly got the hang of it with a few more tries. Adam was by now an expert, which he was very happy about!!

We swam in the resort pool, which was absolutely beautiful, and Mich and Adam beat Sandra and Lee in a pool wrestling match, which they were very happy about. It's the small victories...

That night was Mich's last one in Brisbane. We were all completely exhausterated so watched a few episodes of my Scrubs DVD and went to bed.

The next day Mich and I went to the Valley for lunch before Mich had to head for the airport. We had a good chat about all the stuff that had been going on. I think she wants to change, but it's time to see some action. She knows it needs to happen. Time will tell...

I walked to the city and bought some clothes for Adam in the sales. He needs them. He only has one pair of shorts! In Brisbane! In summer!!!

We met at Southbank to see Happy Feet!!! Yay!!! I have been anticipating this for a while. And while it wasn't as amazing as I'd hoped, it was still super-cute and we enjoyed it. The babies are SO cute!! Yes, I am such a girl.

After the movie and a dinner I scraped together from random stuff in Adam's cupboards/fridge, Adam said he had something to tell me. He looked serious.

"What it is...?" I asked warily.
"Don't worry, it's not something bad. Well, maybe... hmm... you might be a little bit upset."
Well, he knows how to get my undivided attention. I'm riveted to the spot.
"Remember a long time ago, when you said I needed to find someone to talk to about us? Well I did, kind of."
It's true, he used to bottle his feelings up for so long and then they would all explode at once and we would have a huge fight. I encouraged him to find someone he trusted to share things with, to get a different perspective, and just to vent. I find talking to my girlfriends, sister, whoever will listen, about things that are bothering me incredibly theraputic, and he just didn't seem to talk to anyone about us except me.
What he said next was not what I expected.
"So I started a blog. Two years ago. And I would like to share it with you now."

Whoa.

But I was not mad. I was mad when he went skydiving without telling me. This was different. I was glad and proud. And a little nervous.

Glad and proud because he had taken my advice and found an outlet, a sounding board for all his frustrations and worries. As well as the fun stuff that sometimes I might be too self absorbed to give my full attention to.

Nervous because of what I might read about myself.

I asked him why he decided to tell me about it now. Because he has been invited to dinner with some people, and he would like me to come. Wow. This is a lot to take in. Not only is there a whole lot of people with this potentially quite intimate relationship with Adam, but I was about to meet them.

So I sat down to read Adam's blog, and was hooked from the beginning. I haven't gotten very far through it yet... but I love what I've read so far. Obviously I haven't gotten to any bad bits about me yet!!! But he told me that there should be nothing in there that we haven't already talked about, and I think I'll be ok. We'll see...





Well! That's me up to date. Finally.

I thought I said I was going to try to be succinct. So much for that. I think I am destined to write novels, not news articles. Hopefully with a really good editor!

I will try and write things as they happen from now on, rather than an all day blog-fest. I'm exhausted!! Now I think the only thing missing is Hawaii... but I'll save that story for another time.