Sunday.

Feeling floppy. Went to Supermild last night, which was as superly mild as the name suggested. There was an outside area to chill and talk (in the perfect end-of-heat-wave weather), a bar where it didn't take long to be served, space to sit down, retro music and a small woody dance floor which was curiously lacking in groping and grinding.

I've just been watching Rove, which has been a rare occurance since about 2003. Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long: cute. Especially Ginnifer! New girl-crush. On the other hand, Amanda Kerr. The word vacuous comes to mind. Rove asks her a question: Does she prefer to be the giver or getter of surprises on Valentines day? She's like, "...Huh! Every day should be romantic, right? Like... why just be romantic on Valentines Day? That's like, what I think. About Valentines Day."

You know who else is hot? Callie. She is so in my hypothetical threesome. Whereas Ginny and I, we wouldn't work in that way, you know? That's more of a 'want to be' than a 'want to be with'.

Wouldn't it be awesome if cats could be trained to use their kneading behaviour for back massages? If you do have to get up for work, tired and quivery and slightly queasy, being woken by a cat purring and treading and kneading all over your back is the best way to ease into the day.

You know what? I did that survey at the start of the year about 2008, and one of the questions was about best book read. Let me just clarify that two books I read in 2008 were so notably awesome that I have to amend my previous post to tell you about them. One was called Dead Centre, an investigative look into the Joanne Lees/Peter Falconio case.

(http://www.holisticpage.com.au/DeadCentre_RobinBowles%7C9781863254045... Ok, I need to learn how to make 'proper' links).

The second was As Nature Made Him, about David Reimer, a man who was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision. Nothing I candescribe in this sleepy state does this book, full of conflict and questions and bizaree real-life characters, any sort of justice, so just read it. Actually, I think this one wins best book of 2008, or maybe one of the most absorbing books I have ever read.

http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0060192119

I'd say that the authors simply let the fascinating stories of both of these books tell themselves, but its a credit to all the planning, interviewing and investigating that the final products can read in that way. Both stories suck you in: I read case notes from the former at work, and now have difficulty accepting 'remembered' evidence from any victim. I was completely gutted when, after finishing the tentatively uplifting conclusion of the latter and looking up John Money on wikipedia, I discovered that David had committed suicide some years after the point where the book finished.

Ok, I'm done. Early morning shifts, nights out... I'm going to sleep, and hopefully for a long time.

25 things

25 things about me.

1. I tend to keep things way longer than necessary, due to vague beliefs in Being Prepared and This May Be Important. Eg: a black hand-me-down dress which I never once wore, stayed in a drawer for about four years because I might wear it to a beach party. Like, it would be super perfect for a very particular kind of beach party. There was no beach party, and I eventually parted with said dress.

2. I have a little container of spare buttons, too, the kind you take off clothing tags. But that's more because I'm fond of buttons. I remember enjoying playing with my Oma's (much larger) tub of assorted buttons when I was little. LAME KID ALERT.

3. On that note, when I was slightly older (like, grade two or so) I collected the coloured leads that fell out of pencils. For a while that seemed to be the trend, but I was the only one I knew who would spread them out lovingly on the kitchen table to give them 'exercise'.

4. I think I've become less strange as I've gotten older.

5. With that, though, I'm also probably less imaginative.

6. I have Cyndi Lauper, 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' in my head. Its quite an annoying song.

7. I was just before reading about people who have epileptic fits in the parts of the brain that controls memory, and how it triggers them to hear random music from their life over and over. In various patients it has been a blessing or a curse. Now I feel bad about complaining about a little 'ear-worm'.

8. I don't like the term 'ear-worm', but I like the girl in Germany who first introduced me to it. I remember her speaking very slowly and animatedly so I would understand. Ohrwuhrm was the name of a song by a German a capella pop band.

9. I want to buy a new camera, one that makes people look gorgeous all the time. This isn't totally wishful thinking. Sometimes other people take photos and everyone looks great on their screens, and then I take one and the subject has morphed into an oily, gaunt, blood-shot version of themself. This will not do.

10. Double digits! Is it bad that I thought that sounded dirty as soon as I typed it?

11. I prefer spiders to moths.

12. I want to go camping.

13. I read message boards without responding, and blogs of people I don't know in person.

14. I'm pretty glad to be the age I am now, but there's something kind of weird about visualising my life staying basically the same for the next three or four years.

15. I want to see the musical 'Sunday in the Park with George' because I've heard one really good song from it.

16. I'm sometimes not very good at finding things in supermarkets.

17. I'd be more keen to go back to uni if it was replacing something, time-wise (e.g. work) but I'm quite lazy and not looking forward to deciding how much to shuffle stuff around.

18. Today I found out a Taiwanese girl who I thought was, like, 22, is actually 30. And she, who thought I was 22, found out that I was 19. And then she told me I had a good 'EQ'.

19. Damn, should have saved that for number 19. It's... well you know now... my age.

20. I like ants. I mean, not on me or anything, but I think they're cool.

21. I also like cocktails. In me.

22. Room number 22 at work has a broken door. They say its been fixed, but its still actually kinda broken, and I keep forgetting to tell guests they have to make sure its pulled properly shut. Wow, now I'm suddenly paranoid that someone's stuff will get stolen or somebody will be murdered or something, and it'll be partially (fine, perhaps mostly. or even all.) my fault. NOTE TO ALL THIEVES AND MURDERERS, I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THE DOOR *cough*

23. I still have a single bed, but I may get around to getting a double sometime soon.

24. My recently-bought shoerack collapsed dramatically in the middle of the night a few days ago, and now my room is messy again.

25. Woot, the end. I may or may not post this on facebook for the purpose it was intended for.

Love and Hate

There are times where my job grates on my nerves and sensibilites. Times when the place can only be described as 'dysfunctional' and its my role to take the steers, if only for an evening, and navigate through the crap. Times when it seems like I'm surrounded by a bunch of caricatures, times when everyone lives up to their worst ethnic stereotype, times when I'm painfully aware of how I have to condone, if not initiate, dangerous and irresponsible practices for the sake of the night running smoothly.

Then there are moments when I feel very lucky. Moments that I see the world as a rich and endlessly interesting place. Moments when I am surprised at the layers of every individual who I get to know. The NZ guy sleeping in the parklands who chats about how he won a trip to the Globe Theatre for his high school Shakespeare performance. The angry old middle-eastern fellow who puts on his nice shirt to go out and suddenly tells me how he gets self-conscious about how he looks. The big Aussie in the rainbow jumper and kooky glasses with the dreams for a revolutionary public transport system, revealing his suddenly somber divorce story.

And its not just perceptions about others that change, its perceptions about myself, about 'us', Australians in general. Are we, like the cuddly Irish guy suggested, less communal than our UK counterparts? Is it true that Aussies are friendly on the surface but just want to get back into their powerful cars and drive home to their wide-screen TVs?

Plus, of course, there are the little perks of the job, like getting drunk on shift during the Australia Day/Chinese New Year celebrations. Oyy. That was certainly an interesting night! Being drenched with water on the balcony, ringing DW and giggling uncontrollably, having my sober buddy take over the desk for a short time, seeing the wry affectionate looks from Mr Irish at the 'front bar' slash reception desk, getting a massage from the hospital security guard... good times...

But, enough about the hostel. I've got a day off, and I'm quite glad for it. On the weekend I'm having some people around for a BBQ party thing, and I'm just realising I need to plan a little more than just posting the event on facebook. Eg: food? Drinks? Sweeping the yard? Is the pool clean?

DW and I have been, well, not rocky but not smooth lately. There are lingering issues, questions I have about his willingness to make time for us, irritations about how he's being complacent, taking this relationship for granted. Here isn't really the place to nut it out (I did speak to him yesterday, and I was quite proud of my articulate and calm manner - there is no other choice, really, when speaking about such matters) but its been playing on my mind a little. To be continued.

You know what makes me angry? Babies and toddlers getting their ears pierced. Something about hearing a littel girl screaming and bawling in the beauty shop as her skin is mutilated for beauty standards really, really shits me, in an irrational GRAAAA sort of way. Oh, I know plenty of people who themselves got their ears pierced at four years old or six months old or whatever, and they seem to be normal human beings, but I just can't. get behind. why you would subject a perfectly beautiful little toddler to pain that they don't understand, for a PERMANENT CHANGE IN THEIR BODY SO THEY CAN WEAR PINK STUDS. Pink studs which the parent will have to clean and rotate on schedule, because oh yeah babies don't really have that autonomy to look after their own bodies yet, do they. Oh, I alter my own body in ways to appear attractive by societal beauty standards all the time - my hair has highlights, my eyebrows and girly bits are waxed, legs shaved, I wear make-up, etc etc. But I think, in an ideal world, everyone would do those things knowing that they are doing them based on an ideal of beauty, understanding what the process will entail (pain, stubbly regrowth, monetary expense, etc) and being able to independently manage the effects (the steps to prevent infection around the piercing site, for example). To do otherwise just... well, it doesn't even make me angry any more, it just makes me feel a little sad and sick. But I'll get off my soap box.

In fact, I'm going to go to the gym. I have a three week membership. Other airconditioning-based plans for the day include: watching Greys Anatomy, and possibly cleaning out my bookshelf. We'll see which one of those gets priority.

A black notebook will make everything better

I feel like typing, feel like opening the stopper and letting the brain words come out, but it seems there are no brain words to come. Wait... maybe there are a few.

I got a Bras 'n Things voucher for Christmas, and today I bought an excessive amount of naughty knickers with it. The voucher was for $50, and the purchase came to around $60. Sixty dollars! In one knicker-buying spree! After suspiciously looking at the receipt to see how a few frilly things on sale could possibly come to such a figure, I discovered that one pair stood out from the crowd at $26.90. That's one hell of an ass-coverer. Lucky it was shiny. I had better receive some appreciative fondling while wearing that one.

Yesterday I gave blood, which went okay despite my apparently weeny veins. I think I had the most senior person, and I felt relieved when my nurse was the one that the other lady was asking for help. I also had to suppress a smile when, at the request for help, my nurse stopped her friendly chat with me and turned to face her colleague with a steel-faced glare. "You'll just have to wait your turn." Tension in the blood bank. Apparently in China, once you give blood three times, you're entitled to free transfusions for yourself and immediate family if you ever need it. As Brian pointed out, "If everybody in China give blood three times, that's a lot of blood." Damn straight.

Speaking of work, I had one of those moments this morning that I knew would have to happen some time - I was locked out, due to the door code being changed and nobody alerting me. Damn them! A lady in a tour bus was waiting outside for a guest and I could imagine her watching my progress as I tried the door code, looked confused, tried it again, looked it up in my phone, tried it again, then grumpily started calling everybody who might be able to help me. Nobody answered their phones, including the hostel phone, and I retreated into the bus. We both waited, a little tense and irritated, for a guest to emerge from the hostel door - Ms Tour Guide so she could leave and not miss the ferry, me so I could get inside my own workplace. I then called my boss, who was thankfully already up and awake, but didn't know the door code either. "I'll try to call them!" he offered. This amused me, because of the personal insult that the other staff members being willing to answer to him, but not me, would have implied (let's not tell her the door code, then deliberately ignore the phone when she calls from the chilly doorstep!). For all the shambles that that place can be, I don't think people are that horrible. Anyway, the late guest on the tour did emerge, I got inside, and hopefully they got to the ferry on time.

All right. Low battery, and that's enough word drip. And another early start tomorrow. Here's to the underachieving British kids on TV.

There's always some excuse

So.
My New Year's resolution is to live in the moment. In the small picture. Is that weird? Not when you use examples. Enjoy the night, don't bog yourself down with thoughts of the next morning's obligations. Be mentally present at work, don't count down the hours until the shift ends. Keep running, just feel the running, try not to anticipate the finish line or it will come more slowly. You remember moments in life, you don't remember transitions between them. So see each moment separately for what it is.

Also: Pay off a grand of HECS each invoice.
Also: Be chatty with guests at the hostel. Nearly everyone has a sympathetic side.
Also: Put myself 'out there', both in a sense of physicality and personality. People, on the whole, like me, but I forget that, and consequently I come off as a little reserved on first impression. So: do things outside of my comfort zone, with people who aren't already inside the personal bubble. Let them in.

Wait, a few more. These are the ones I'm already failing:
Keep my nails nice. Seriously. Torn, uneven nails are not cute. You don't play cops and robbers in the playground these days. You are a big girl now. Evidence: menstruation, ownership of high heels. (I kid.) Big girls have nice nails, ok?
Auf Deutsch mit den deutschen Gaesten zu reden. Look, I don't even know if that's correct. I miss the feeling of navigating my way through successfully through a sentence, my mind laying down the path pieces for my words to skip along. I have deteriorated so much in German, I reckon, and a good lot of that is confidence. Fine, my secondary resolution is to get a HD in German at uni this coming semester. That sounds ambitious for someone who can barely stutter out a phrase on the cuff, but I reckon I could do it - after all, I did get distinctions last year by doing nothing more than the minimum; the push of what I'd learnt in year twelve still carrying me along. Sure, it'll be a step up... but I'll give it my best shot this time.

Alright. Enough resolutions. Its going to be 41 degrees tomorrow, and I'm going to THE BEACH, which is against everything that me and my pasty skin stand for. Its with DW and some of his friends, and I have suspicions that he will want me to be all bikini-body and bare. Dude. This girl does not tan.

For some reason I've been thinking about what I look like lately, not in a body-image problem type way nor in a fit of vanity. Well, maybe it is the latter, in a sense. But I've just been trying to get a guage on what I *actually* look like, and I've been thinking about my outer shell, if you will, with a sense of curious detachment. Sure, there are physical qualities about yourself that you know for fact. But. What else? You get used to seeing pictures of your face, but then you see a shot taken with your face side-on in the background and its weird. So that's what my nose is like from the side? And my chin? Interesting to know. I've been made aware that I have a distinctive jaw, which I would not have ever known about myself had it not been for observant male friends. Then again, one described it as kind of detaching itself from its proper position when I smile, but looking nice (w.t.f?) while another called it 'slightly manly'. And do I have the family nose, which is not a particularly good thing, or does it, as someone said, 'have a very feminine curve'? What does that mean, anyway? Can it be both? When did my skin stop being 'oily/combination' and start up with 'dry/sensitive'? Is that what it even is? Do people see my arms as all pink and freckly, or do they not notice? Is it obvious that one eyebrow has a slightly higher arch than the other, when not properly groomed? Hey, my elbow looks pointy in that photo. Are my elbows pointier than other people's? My hair looks pretty there. But there, my hair looks like a square. Would people describe me as a blonde? And body shape. Clearly I'm on the thin end of the spectrum, and not overly curvy, but... what's my gangliness to grace rating? To some I'm probably 'too scrawny', to others 'petite', to others, dare I say it, 'hot'. My boss declared that I had the same proportions as his six foot, D-cup wife, which... is maybe an exaggeration. But nevertheless, some people seem to see a quite feminine physique, while other sets of roaming eyes pass me over in favour of some more... spantaneous bootay. Shopping for black work pants in a cheap store mainly frequented by thirteen-year-olds and Asians gave me some insight as to why I had slowly come to feel smaller over time... pants declared size ten in that little store are skin tight, while in big-girl-shopping land a size ten may slip entirely past the waist and cling for dear life on the pitiful semblance of hips. I haven't shrunk since early teen years... good to know! Of course, this is all getting into people's personal preferences of attraction, which really is vanity territory, but I just want some objectivity, damnit!

Alright. This entry is certainly more than enough introspection for one night. Let me look outside of myself for a minute, and talk about:

Twilight. Overall, I have to admit that I was kind of 'meh'. There were bits that were good, bits that were sexy or exciting, but I felt like I could tell that the author liked writing those parts too so put all her energy there and then just burbled her way through the joining-up-parts. I was passively entertained, but I don't know that I'd jump straight to the sequel.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I realised how biased I was when I looked up reviews after the movie, and decided not to read the unfavourable ones because they clearly didn't get it. Haha. Something which I haven't yet seen mentioned, is that it made me feel that being 'old' wouldn't be all that bad... going backward through the years makes it look like, wow, 65 is really a spring chicken! And what superb physical condition he's in at 50! For a moment there I thought it would be better if there was no real connection between the man in the diary and the woman reading, because it would give it this sort of existential touch, a suggestion of the way we metaphorically bump into each other and see brief glimpes into each other's lives. But I think it was actually better how they did it. I liked the ending, with the baby's eyes a nice creepy touch. Plus, Brad Pitt is sexy. There was a point where it was like the producers flipped a switch and it was like, there he is! Goodbye weird old-man relationship, hello Mr Hot Stuff!

I'm looking forward to the Time Traveller's Wife coming out, but I have a feeling that although TTTW could be done justice with that same depth of emotion, it... won't be. Hm. We'll see.

The Island of The Colourblind: I got this for Christmas and I'm still reading it - it's not something that you whip through in a frenzy, but I like it. I have a soft spot for non-fiction tales of biology, especially ones with copious digressing footnotes, and I like thinking about the bizarre yet totally fateful occurrences on our planet. I plan to read more of Oliver Sacks stuff... He lets me, who can never go back to 'hard sciences', see more of our intriguing world.

Alright. It's late. Enough.

Night on the town

A tourist in my own town!

That's what it felt like, last night, combined oddly with a sense of being at home, of properly belonging at the hostel. For a friend's birthday, 4 of us girls had a night on the town complete with cheap (or, uh, free!) overnight accommodation at my workplace. Awesomest idea. Three of us bussed it into town and dumped our stuff in the hostel room first. There was a pillow case shortage, and the reception girl's lack of concern about this irked me slightly, perhaps more of a show to the others than because it was a real problem... but hey, I know what a bag of unwashed linen in reception looks like. I took the girls out onto the balcony to say hi to people, and we heard Paddy McIrish's advice again about not eating too much before heading to Red Rock Noodle Bar, a place which I hold in high esteem. Of all the (two) varieties of food which I have ever eaten there, they have never disappointed! They served lovely and cheap house rose, satay sauce with their prawn crackers, our little Asian waitress was cute, and they played clapping over the sound system for someone else's birthday celebration. What's not to love? Nevertheless, I didn't finish all of my spicy pineapple fried rice, not wanting to be a Sleepy Sally by midnight.

Back to the hostel, after springing my friend's wild little sister with a fake ID in town after Schutzenfest. My buddy was behind the counter this time, greeting us with, "Do you guys want alcohol?" He was being quite cute and my friends liked him. My good karma with him was rewarded by free drinks for us all. There were quite a few people around now, and it was exhilarating to be there in a truly social sense. Also, I don't want this to sound weird, but the hostel is kind of a testing ground for how I look. You know if you're getting the vibes. People notice, people check out, people comment, people flirt. I was indeed feeling the vibes, and I liked it when I was having fun with Amit, trying to hold my TED less like a cruiser and more like a manly beer, and Amit overheard the Korean guy and girl near us chatting. "What's that, something about girls' bodies? I like that topic," he said. "What were you saying?" Mr Sweet Rice-Lifter replied, "We say she look very beautiful tonight," nodding at me. Naw. You know, I love how the Asians use the word beautiful where we would say simply nice or good. I hear it from Hong (an older Chinese nursing student) sometimes too, and it makes me smile. Vey Beautifoo!

We declined the invitation to join some of the party-loving Indians at HQ, and went to Woolshed on Hindley St first. There we bumped into a fellow who had been the year below us at school, and his mate who had finished at the next-door public high school in the same year as us. Said guy and I started talking (well, it was pretty noisy, but I caught enough to have time-appropriate body language and facial expressions - thanks, Germany!) and then he seemed to, well, attach himself to me like a pseudo-boyfriend for the night. He seemed a nice enough guy, and I didn't really mind.

Our fourth girl companion joined us at the Woolshed, and then the time between then and the end of the night passed in a bit of a blur, with dancing, talking, learning martial arts moves, meeting momentarily with some guys from school who I was glad to part with (one of my friends wanted to hook up with one of them, but this would mean that I would be stuck with the other, a self-absorbed bore), a cowboy shot which somehow ended up on my hair and top instead of in my mouth, and lots of poking and tickling from my new friend. We went to Jive, then Swish, where we stayed until last drinks and lights on. Swish was funny. There were a bunch of teachers from our high school there, drunk as anything. One of them was this dorky ginger-haired English teacher, a round-faced man with a lisp. He lives somewhere very city-central, so all these cool young P.E. and tech teachers go out with him to take advantage of his hospitality. Hahah. Actually, I used to always think that Mr Ginger was kind of cute, but my gay friend and I later agreed that he was much less cute up close. Anyway, he was the only teacher who really knew who I was, and was trying to ask sensible questions about uni and my degree while we were on the dance floor. Meanwhile, the other teachers were meeting my friend's, "Who are you?" with "The best time of your life!"

As this was going on, I was getting a bit sick of my lover boy, and on occasion one of the girls would 'rescue' me from his dancing with a twirl to the other side of the group. I'm kind of bad though, being aware that I was giving him just enough attention to keep his interest, but not enough for him to really get into it. He knew that I had a boyfriend, in any case. In fact, he started using this in some weird lines. When some strangers came by and started dancing, taking my hand in the air and whatnot, he got all frowny. "If they try to dance with you, you can come back to me!" he said valiantly. "I know you've got a boyfriend and they don't!" First: Why do you think that somewhat-sexy dancing with them is something I would need to escape from, when doing the exact same thing with you was ok? What do you think these guys would do in their naive ignorance of my relationship status, that I wouldn't have any control over? I do get his point, and in a sense it was nice that he was looking out for me, but in a sense it was also... unneccesary. If I went too long without catching his eye or dancing close to him he would reach out and give me a little tickle on the waist, like, "hey, remember, I do that thing where I poke you and you do that thing where you retaliate and fight me off? Wasn't that fun?"

After we said goodbye to the guys and left Swish, it seemed like a good option to take off our heels, something which I normally avoid in town. I walked with the friend who came later up to where her car was parked to grab her stuff, which seemed disgusting when we came back the next day and looked more seeing-ly at all the oil and black shit on the concrete. EW. And DANGEROUS. As we went back to the hostel, we met the teachers who were still outside Swish. "You again!" I said. We walked along with them, telling them where we were staying, and somehow two of them (the one who I have dubbed Mr Ginger, and another who I will dub... Mr Blond) decided they were coming too. "Tell them they can't!" muttered my friend. "You're the boss!"

We stopped at the convenience store first and bought some snacks, and I discovered that the Indian guy on shift used to work at the hostel under the old managers, and was now at the other hostel. Although I was excited by this common ground, we didn't chat about the rich building owner for long before my expertise was required to get into the door. And... it didn't work! I knew the code, and it unlocked, but I couldn't push it forward. "It's like its deadlocked or something!" we panicked, and they wanted me to wake up the poor person on night-shift, but thankfully I had the sense to pull the door instead of pushing it. Oh right, maybe it isn't a push-forward door like I righteously claimed. After all this, the teachers followed us right in.

"You know you can't actually stay for long," I warned. Mr Blond drunkenly asserted that they were coming in our room. "Pretty sure, no," I said, reverting to school-speak. One friend and I went to the kitchen to share some instant noodles, and Mr Blond exclaimed over it all, like wow we were actually staying here, you work here, this is like a kitchen, hey this is soy sauce, durrr. I glimpsed Brian the night-owl in the common area and made more of a point of telling them that they had to go. Mr Blond started picking up people's bottles of sauce and stuff and shifting them into other pigeonholes, and then I was suddenly shrieky like, DUDE. NO. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE PIGEONHOLES. Well, pardon my sensitivity, but you're not the one who has been verbally abused by a psycho bleeding old man who has lost his eggs. Although luckily we were away from Victor's pigeonhole side.

Anyway, I pointed out that I actually worked here and was not quite supposed to let strange men in at night, feeling like quite the school captain. Some people manage to stay in their school roles, gosh. Mr Ginger got the idea and started heading out, but Mr Blond was still like "party in your room! durrr." I basically kept waving goodbye at him until they left. Hahah.

Well, the night was drawing to a close and so is this bloody long recount. We slept, I woke early from the sunlight, and I don't really feel worse for wear at all. Yay for girls night!

New Years fun

Today began at 5 am. I woke to DW's ridiculously loud and cheerful mexican-themed phone alarm, and gave him a shove because he, astoundingly, still lay sleeping. "I'll put it for nine more minutes on snooze," he mumbled, before rolling over and pulling all the sleeping bag with him in one move. Well, being cold and unable to get comfortable was an incentive to get out of bed after those nine minutes had passed.

It was DW's idea to leave the shack early, so as to catch the Southern Expressway before all the city-bound traffic clogged it up. When his suggestion was first met with a 'wha?" from me, he reminded me how nice it would be driving with the sun rising and all. True, the idea did have some romantic appeal. So this morning we chucked out all the old food from the fridge, packed the car, grumbled over the front door lock for some time (although the handle was technically locked, you could still actually push the door open. Shh.) and were gone soon after six. The shack doesn't have its own bin, and last year our group had made regular use of a dumpster in the shopping centre carpark. This year, the dumpsters were all in a locked area, so I hauled the bags from DWs boot into a council bin near a bus stop. Shh again. There was a sign on the bin warning of a $500 fine for doing just that, and DW conveniently stayed in the driver's seat while I carried out the leg work for our secret operation.

So, the house was barely stirring by the time I got home back to the red-barked gum trees of the North East. I've had a long and quiet day, filled with things like watching Greys Anatomy, reading Twilight and uploading photos to facebook.

And New Years Eve? New Years was fun. I, who had been momentarily concerned that we wouldn't have 'enough alcohol', rediscovered how easily I can get pissed. There was dancing in the shack, walking in the cold to the beach, H crying over her ex, me then getting sniffly to DW because I thought I had made her cry, peeing in the bushes, shouting greetings at everyone we passed, deciding that the beach was not the happening scene of last year, staggering back to the shack, collapsing on the bed with DW, being disturbed by the 18-year-old councillor flinging our door open to check on us (don't worry, he was an invite and not an enforcer of moral correctness), getting up again to socialise some more, hearing about the friend who decided to wade in the water and the other friend who freaked out thinking she had drowned, eventually dozing off, being stirred by DW for some bed-jiggling, becoming eventually weary of said shenanigans, realising it was now light, falling back asleep for a few hours and awakening with barely a hangover. DW couldn't say the same thing. Yay me for avoiding the tequila!

H's dad was arriving back from a trip a day earlier than planned, so she left with her full car of travellers on New Years Day. The other two friends (the issue-ridden beach-drowning pair) were staying at Goolwa and they also left. So, DW and I had the surprising bonus of a night to ourselves! Although DW had enjoyed himself and was indeed loud and extroverted with my buddies (especially his former work mate 'councillor Jones') I think he was very glad to wind down and have some peace and one-on-one company. We watched TV and cuddled, had a looong session of... shenanigans... and showered together afterward. Getting clean and dry after the shower gave me almost the same feeling that you have after the beach as a kid, that sense of being refreshed but worn out in a good way, unaware of the exercise that you'd been doing. I felt like going to the beach again in the evening, just to do it justice, you know? It was such a pretty coast and a nice night. DW was less keen, still feeling seedy and having little energy, but we went down there and ate at a fish and chip shop on the Esplanade, fulfilling my desire for beachside charm while avoiding the exertion of, you know, walking on the sand or anything. Then there was watching of game shows back at the shack (Temptation and Don't Forget the Lyrics), silly playfights over things like DWs persistent 'flub flub' noises, talking and cuddling and sleeping. And now we've done a circle from the beginning of the entry.

So, that was New Years. Overall pretty awesome, I'd say.