We went to the Old Church at Byron Bay for the weekend with Fav BIL, Nemain, Miss CL, NMdG,  Carrot Cake, Yale, Mr K, myself, Roz and Orlando.  It started out as NMdG wanting to go away to Caloundra with about 4 of us for the weekend as a farewell for them before they move to the UK.  But as much as that sounded like fun, I thought the church sounded like a goer if we could get enough of us together.

The Old Church in Byron Bay what fits up to a dozen people comfortably – We managed to get 10 like minded individuals on the invite list, and luckily everyone seemed keen and able to make it along.  We went down on Friday night, and everyone was excited, it’s fun to get away and do something a little out of the ordinary like this, and everyone was in a holiday and party kinda mood.  We got pretty drunk, sat around speaking a lot of rubbish and ended late in the night sitting around talking in the choir loft.

In the morning, we had a fantastic brekkie and then I dragged everyone down to S(A)X leather for some shopping.  It was kinda fun to see how everyone liked the place.  They only have a little showroom, but they have heaps of stock crammed into that little space.  Quite a few of the items on display raised a few eyebrows and seemed to get the guys visibly wincing quite frequently.  🙂   I bought myself e a nice little belt.  I’ve needed one for ages, since I dropped some weight, but never found one I liked…  it should turn up in the mail later this week. Yay for retail therapy!  🙂  One of our party, who shall remain nameless, bought a pair of wrist restraints, and it was so cute to watch everyone playing with them for the afternoon…  quite the novelty!!!  We also popped into this strange Happy Herb shop in Byron that Yale recommended, and I picked up some Tongan Kava which might make a good muscle relaxant for my back…. will have to wait and see about that.  The afternoon was spent in drunken ping pong while I cooked dinner and everyone was well and truly toasted by the time the food hit the table.  When the dinner was finally all done, and I was out of danger of losing a finger on the hideously blunt knives, I went out and had a smoke and caught up with the drunkards really quickly… off with the pixies before we knew it….

After dinner, we hung out, got drunk, had strange conversations, got more drunk, strange conversations turned to talking absolute trash, drunker and drunker, talking trash turned to true confessions and so on and so forth….. everyone was drunkety drunk drunk, and having a great time.  I got to know everyone much better than I ever thought I would which was fun.  I certainly had a great time.  And you know – there’s something really cool about doing it in a church.  You can go away for a weekend with your friends any old time, but do you get to stash a whole pile of new “I Have Never”s for future reference?  No… not always !!!

I have never…  got high in a place of religious worship.   Stands up and drinks 🙂
I have never…  discussed anal sex in church.  Hmm more drinks 🙂
I have never…  had sex in a chapel.  Stand and repeat  🙂
I have never…  kissed a chick in a choir loft.  Burp!!!  🙂 LOL

The next morning we had another bang up brekkie… fry up thank God – just what we all needed.  We pottered around the house, read some newspapers, and flopped about for the morning.  After that we packed, and said goodbye to the happy church… and have made a tentative plan to come back in twenty years for another fun weekend 🙂
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This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	5.6
Mind:	5.9
Body:	4.1
Spirit:	5.2
Friends/Family:	7.1
Love:	10
Finance:	7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Sir Phil was doing this Rate My Life Quiz and flicked me the link so I could complete it while we were chatting on the phone.  The response I got was pretty bloody ordinary I think…5.6 out of 10… Thanks Sir_Phil for reminding me how crap my life is!!!  And then I read the short  analysis that came under the pretty graph.  Apparently I’ve scored much higher than average on the Love aspect of my life – my score… 10, average score… 4.3 from 961,533 respondents.  And it came up with this blurb –

Your Love score is very high, much higher than the average. If you wouldn’t mind, please take a little time to explain how you manage to succeed so well at this aspect of your life. Your words may be read by someone else who scored very low. Take a moment to give them some useful advice. Your thoughts are very much appreciated.

So I was trying to come up with some useful advice…  hmmm….  I couldn’t think of anything!  Which is excessively rare for me.  Normally I’m full of advice for my friends about managing relationships  (Well, full of something!!  🙂  But in this context …. still can’t think of anything.  Why am I happy with my love life?  hmmm,….  well MrK is my best friend.  We live in the same house, and yet see other people.  Neither of us gets bent out of shape about the other one’s choices and so far I think the reason it’s working for us is because we’re as honest with each other as humanly possible.  There’s no bullshit there, no second guessing, no attempting to manipulate each other… everything is just out in the open.  I rarely hold back from telling people how I’m feeling and have never held back anything from MrK.  I find it exhausting to be in a relationship (even a friendship) where you can’t just be yourself and speak your mind, and so tend to avoid people who aren’t able to cope with a brutal honesty every now and then.   

Anyway, I think being open and honest about who you are and what you want is probably the most important thing.  But I think it’s also something that a lot of people find really difficult because they’re worried they wont be accepted for who they really are and so tend to present a version of themselves  – sometimes that’s a sanitized, more socially accepted version of themselves – in the hope that potential partners will find them more readily acceptable.   Or maybe I’m just talking shit  🙂   I’m off to bed.

Try asking me again next week and you’ll probably get a very different story!!!   🙂