owlrigh

It's not often that I turn up to someone's place and the first thing I do is shower. It was an august setting for the last slash gathering of the year. The theme this time was: bucket party. Having alcohol mixed up in a bucket sure is a good way of getting boozed up in a hurry -- there was promise of people crawling along the floors on their hands and knees. None was to be seen.

Before I actually got there, though, I spent a good while cycling along the river. I passed a yacht for sale moored near a park and nearly was past before I yanked myself around for a good look.

$20,000.

Not likely. Well, likely: I fell into a gooey mass inside, going want! want! but I sneered at the price they were asking. Someone would buy it for that much and spend another $10,000 fixing it up, for that yacht sure needed a fair bit. I bet if I'd the money I could go to the owner -- probably a guy -- and get it for $10,000. Oh, to go up and the river as I felt like it. So cheap to buy a yacht. Once you have her you can then fiddle.

I felt so sorry for that yacht, all ignored and just sitting there because the price tag's too hefty. If the guy who eventually buys her does so for full price after falling in love with the yacht -- truly a beautiful piece -- he's got a marked lack of brains. Old yacht. Needing lots of tender love and care.

It took a bit of doing, but eventually I smacked myself around the ears a bit and headed off to face a household of boozed up slashers -- well, eventually. It's generally quite entertaining.

The slash meets only seem to get better every time. Well, except for when at my place, the last of which was rather lacking in energy. Probably because the really chirpy people weren't around, as they were last night.

One can only hope that the amount of alcohol floating around means that everyone forgot some of the rather too much information conversations which were going on -- my attempt to not participate was blown out of the water by other people volunteering things I'd forgotten I'd ever said so I may as well have. Still! Mutual exchange of dirt meant we were rolling around in laughter, while people ran away from me and my disgusting stories.

I really know how to clear a room.

Dawn was approaching when the last remnants of awake people suggested that we have a look at gay porn for a laugh. We ended up downloading gay porn bloopers and one about raping watermelons and just about died from the funny. Porn bloopers! Guys not being able to keep it up! Guys humping watermelons. It was certainly very educational.

From the various clips and bits and pieces of watching, the Queer Eye for a Straight Guy Christmas special stands out especially. This is possibly due to that it was watched prior to alcoholic consumption. One part of the etiquette tips stands out especially.

"When you host a party, serve the drinks as people arrive. When you want to wrap the evening up, ask them if they want coffee."

I suddenly had horrible flashes to slash meets at the usual West End place, with Ned & Leny asking us all late into the night whether we want coffee.

Normally we all chirp "yes!" and take our time about drinking it down, then spend another hour or so hanging around before the first few people start to trickle out.

We are all so lacking in our knowledge of polite society that we don't know that it's a hint for us to get ourselves into gear and out of there! Well, perhaps. It's a very subtle idea, regardless.

There was a hammock lying in the middle of the computer area. Upon seating myself in it I found that it was just the most perfect way to read. It was set in a steel frame, so that there was no need for it to be suspended from the ceiling or any such, but what comfort for reading! Normally I get numb parts of all kinds of anatomy from cushions. Of course I kept gravitating to all the books there, and found much to my glee from casual perusal that faith_accompli is a seamstress, which is a skill I am delighted to find in anyone, especially those younger than myself.

In the morning I got my hair cut by someone who'd drunk what seemed like half a gallon of alcoholic beverages and then got less sleep than me. Somehow we got onto the topic of hair and I realised that there was no better time than the present to get mine trimmed -- after three years of no cutting, a few split ends were making things a bit ragged.

To keep things clean, a chair was dragged out into the expansive garden in the middle of the sun and I sat there while diamonde carefully combed and sectioned hair off to make the cut. I was impressed. Everyone else who's cut my hair just combed it into the back and sliced it off in a few seconds.

I do love it when people play with my hair, and it followed on to her cutting some off. I felt relaxed, calm, and happy. Not much went in the long run, for I am attempting to keep it long for the time being, but for that little while my sitting in that garden with the wind blowing gently and the sun beaming down on me -- that was a special and pretty moment of the day.

Still, all good things come to an end, and just after lunch the last of the rabble left. I faced a couple of hours' ride home, since the last of my money had disappeared off to someone I owed. It was quite splendid. I don't really like the ride from my place to the city for there are too many hills and not enough arm on the roads, but from Indooroopilly? Lovely. Busy roads have lots of arms and the hills are almost nonexistent.

Not only my legs are developing interesting musculature, but my lungs are now getting big enough that I can sing while riding without any trouble. When I first started doing that my lungs burned a bit. Now, unless going up a hill, it's quite fine. I only just realised this today. Just need a faster bike now, so that it doesn't take me two hours to Indooroopilly.

Great end of year bash, with all us geeky people over online journals and tv shows and the rest piling up together. Great day. Hot sun. Wind against me all the way. Wind to keep me cool and sun to keep me happy, and a new icon for a new year.