Burning with happiness

Today was a good day. But first, last night.

Started off with 4 Becks. Then there was the Arts Factory talent show. It was sound engineered and co-hosted by a very gorgeous Lebanese hippy musician with dreadlocks. We certainly need more of them in the world. And all the acts were outstanding bar one. And me. I read Small Note in Jacket Pocket and told a naughty joke. I won a t-shirt and some good laughs for the joke, and a bit of hearty applause for the poem, which is the only one that I have here that doesn't make direct reference to my fondness for men. I wanted to read some of my "gay" poems, especially after this purple-headed dyke got up and recited some fucking awful poetry about all the different kinds of love, but I chickened out. Ah well.

The highlights of the talent show, for me, were these two unbelievably cute Canadians who did some very nice songs, and this band of Japanese guys played very authentic sounding Aboriginal music. And this other Japanese group that did very haunting instrumental stuff. After the show, a lot of people and me ran off to the Buddha Bar, a lovely bar and restaurant situated right at the Hostel. It was there I got to meet one of the Canadians, who said I should come to Vancouver, where he was from. He also said he was thinking of using the tour to Nimbin he and his friend won on Thursday, the day I'm going. Maybe he was just saying it to be friendly. I was pleased nonetheless. Oh. My. God. He's gorgeous. Don't worry, I got a photo.

I made a friend, Jessica from the Channel Islands, and then I came out to her. It was mainly because she was nice, and she reminded me a lot of my other friend Kate from Wagga Wagga. I just bitched to her about how hard it was to be a gay backpacker, you know, being surrounded by all these amazingly attractive straight men and so on. She sympathised etc. We had a nice chat. And then I met her friend Antoinette, a lovely Dutch girl with this wierd cockney English accent.

Then Julia from work turned up. She's a lovely girl with a lovely Norwegian boyfriend, and they're up in Byron just having a nice time. I saw them two days previously while I was trying to force down this incredibly delicious, incredibly rich Macadamia Cheesecake/Caramel Tart type object in town. But I didn't expect to see 'em at the Hostel, despite the fact the Buddha Bar is open to non-backpackers. She's gotten a job at the ABC, a pretty good one, and she kept saying the main reason she got it because she had worked at SBS. That made me feel happy, if slightly doubtful. So me and her and her lovely boyfriend kinda banded together and made our way to Cheeky Monkey's, Byron's premier backpacker hangout. She asked me if I thought he was hot. I was guarded, saying he was very cute, but she was so wanting me to say that I want to have sex with him. She said all the gay boys are all over him. She seemed to like that.

Anyway, at the Cheeky Monkey, they have $2 meals on Fridays, and a pretty crappy music policy. The crowd is, as expected, was gorgeous but boring. But, Mr German Supermodel, or Hansel as I call him, (I still don't know his name) was there. And not only was he there, he surreptitiously grabbed my hand and squeezed it when he saw me. Let's disregard the fact that he was fucking spastic, and that he was all over two girls on various occasions throughout the night, and let's just look at that sentence again. He surreptitiously grabbed my hand and squeezed it... What completely heterosexual man does that, I ask you? So anyway, I'm going to get his number/email, at the very least.

So I got bored of Cheeky's and went home, after trying to find Julia and Jurgen without success. I'll call her before I leave. Maybe.

Now, today. I woke up with a pleasant hangover. I'd only had 4 hours sleep, but I felt okay. And I started walking towards Tallows Beach. It was a long walk, but God it was worth it. This beach was, no joke, so long it took me half an hour to walk halfway along it. And it was just perfect white sand and lots of smooth pebbles. And the water was the most beautiful glassy green. And there was hardly anyone else there. So I sat and meditated for a little bit, and had all these visions of flying over a gorgeous landscape of my own imagining. Everything was gold and green and white. Then I made a large picture in the sand, using pebbles. It took me forever but I liked it. It ended up looking like an angel. It will probably stay there for a while, getting covered with sand, but those rocks won't move anywhere unless someone moves them. I didn't bring my camera but I was only half disappointed about that. I reckon it was just nice, useless thing I had to do on my holiday.

Then I walked for half an hour, north towards the lighthouse, and went for a swim, and realised I was sunburnt but very happy.