Story of my life ...
Friday night was bittersweet … the Taste of Italy was on again in Nambour. The night is a culmination of a year’s practice and organisation on the part of the Sunshine Coast schools that teach Italian in their schools. The Italian teachers and students put together a short presentation (dance, music, speaking) to showcase the Italian language and culture, and I just have to say, each year the acts just get better and better. It’s a real testament to the teachers and the students and it’s something that everyone enjoys on the night - the kids have a blast.
The night is in memory of my father, which makes it quite touching and poignant for mum and I, and we’re invited each year to present the perpetual trophy to the winning school. For a few years now I’ve also been a judge for the overall winner (there are separate categories but this year they were divided into Best Storytelling, Best Music and Dance and Most Original and Creative (my category, and the overall winner as well).
While we were at the function, Mr Mitsubishi smsd me to find out if I was going down to see Tha Boyz at the Brunswick (he was there with his girlfriend), because he’d asked Drummer Man and Drummer Man had told him that hopefully I was heading down after the function. The Taste of Italy finished at 10PM, so of course I wasn’t going to go to Brisbane after that, and I met up with Miss Teacher, Miss Vegan, Miss Mauritius, PeaceAngel and InYerFace at a Maroochydore pub to watch Dreadlocks Snr’s band play.
I got there by quarter to 11 (the band hadn’t been on yet, just a couple of lead-up bands) and it wasn’t long before Djembo Man, Dreadlocks Jnr, Olly and a couple of others turned up. After giving me a hug (he didn’t hug anyone else), I pointed out that Olly was clean-shaven - the first time I’d seen him that way the two times I’d seen him. “Four times” was his response, a slightly hurt look on his face. “Four times?” I asked. “Yeah, we’ve seen each other four times, this is the fifth”. Oh my lord, how sweet. I smiled and said, “Ok, I’m sorry, the first time lately that I’ve seen you clean-shaven. Those other two times in the pokie room at Friday’s are excluded”. He smiled and said “Pokie room and out in the beer garden, too”. Wow, I thought I was the only freaky one who remembered those kinds of things - I can’t believe he was drunk each time and remembered. We just smiled at each other and then someone interrupted us. He wandered off to get a drink or something and Miss Teacher started in on me about Olly and how much he obviously likes me and the rest of it. I told her to just be cool about it, it wasn’t what she thought, we just get along great - let’s not read too much into it hey.
He came back and stood next to me and the next thing I know, he’s knocking my knee out from under me - pretending it wasn’t him lol. So we start being idiots and doing stupid little things like that to each other (I could see Miss Teacher’s face too :P) Anyway, apart from that it was pretty low key, tho we weren’t far from each other the entire night. But I was mindful that he had a girlfriend and was entirely wrong for me. But he’s fun. We were outside in the smoking section before Dreadlocks Snr’s band came on, chatting with PeaceAngel and InYerFace and a couple of randoms, when he saved me from a very drunk little brother of Dreadlocks Snr and Jnr (he grabbed me when the young NoDreadlocks almost fell on top of me). Didn’t stop Olly from continuing to give him drinks tho (despite my nagging lol). He followed me back inside where we listened to the band who, (despite being death metal :S) were quite good. They’re the only band I enjoyed listening to that night (believe me, when I walked up to the door and heard the music and guttural screaming, I almost turned and drove to Friday’s to listen to more normal music from Lynchie lol. Standing there being idiots, and then the sly little shit leant on my shoulder (he’s slightly taller than me). I laughed and shrugged him off, saying he was too tall and it wasn’t fair. So he stood with his legs spread for a little while so he was down to my height lol.
Anyway, Olly and I continued our little game, meeting up in the smoking section outside after the band. There was some drunken little tart running around in too short shorts and too low top (she wasn’t the slimmest of build either) playing up to Olly. You could tell he wasn’t really into it but he wasn’t pushing her away either (turns out he knew her). I found people next to me that I knew to talk to (Jazzy from Drummer Man’s Wednesday night gigs) before the tart started exclaiming that Olly had a girlfriend. I turned back to them and he was looking straight at me, I couldn’t read the expression on his face. One of Tarty’s friends had asked him if he had a girlfriend and he had replied yes. I then understood the look on his face - he was looking at me earnestly, but I’m not sure why, I knew he had a girlfriend. So these girls were talking quite loudly about not getting with guys who had girlfriends, it was low and it was even lower if the guy was playing around. Then, “Are you his girlfriend?” Oh no, not another one. I shook my head and said no. As vocal as Tarty was about how low it was to get with a taken guy, she was still all over him, and he was still looking at me. Tarty’s friend started talking to me, which annoyed me because she was drunk and in my face and I was trying to eavesdrop on Tarty and Olly’s conversation. Tarty suddenly grabbed me and asked “Did you hear that?!” Hear what? “What Olly just said, did you hear what he just said?” I replied that no, I hadn’t (cos I hadn’t dammit). She got him to repeat what he had said, and it was such an odd way to repeat it … he looked me straight in the eye and said so quietly that I almost had to read his lips, “I don’t have a girlfriend.” I didn’t reply, just kept his gaze. Tarty was distracted with something happening just next to us and so she faded from our world for the next few seconds. After a moment, I cocked my head to the side and asked (quietly), “You don’t have a girlfriend?” With a serious look on his face, he shook his head slightly and just replied, “No”. We held our gazes for another few moments, before being interrupted by Tarty. She was waving a drumstick rather dangerously (she’s friends with Dreadlocks Snr’s band) and Olly and I were sharing laughs about that, even while she was sidling up to him. I turned to go back inside and he followed, much to the disappointment of Tarty. Aw, sad lol. We went to the bar so Olly could get another drink, and that’s where Miss Teacher and Miss Vegan found us. For some reason, Miss Vegan asked him about his girlfriend, realising too late that it was probably the wrong thing to say. He was ok about it, just said something about not knowing how she was and not really caring. Miss Vegan felt so bad but I told her it was ok. Miss Teacher took that opportunity to say, “He’s single, sink your claws in”, hardly waiting for me to reply with “I plan on it” before going to talk to him. I hoped the subject wasn’t me, but I think it was to start with. She didn’t say anything in particular about it, but his turn and wink at me told me that he knew what was going on. Dammit Miss Teacher!
We went outside again and had a bit of a group chat … well there were a few different conversations going and I felt about bit out of it as I wasn’t really part of anyone’s conversation. Then Jazzy called me over to her and her boyfriend and introduced me to some guy standing with them, “Hey Frangelica, this is Random, you’re about the same height, go for it.” Huh? She was trying to set me up, Random was in on it, I just wanted out. I’m sure he wasn’t a serial killer but I didn’t want a bar of it. They kept pushing it, I just kept pushing it back and I tried to get out of that situation as quickly as I could (wasn’t as quickly as I wanted though). I headed back and sat next to Olly (InYerFace and PeaceAngel had left by then), where we *surprise surprise* started flirting again. Pretty soon I was ready to go though, I needed sleep. Olly was ready to go as well. He asked if I could give him a lift home so I asked where he lived. He replied that he was staying at Djembo Man’s, so that wasn’t a problem. I joked that if he lived out woop woop then that might have been different. So he replied, “Actually, I live in Toowoomba … would you drive me to Toowoomba?” The sparkle in his eye was unmistakable lol. I grinned and said “Sure, why not? I’ll get back in time to drive straight to the wedding in Gympie tomorrow.” LOL. Miss Teacher couldn’t help but joke about it as we left - I was apparently to get a pash and dash lol.
We hadn’t even pulled out of the car park before we started to try and find out more about each other. He asked my age and I told him to guess. He said twenty-three. I said that was sweet, but no. He guessed twenty-four and I laughed and said twenty-five. He smiled and I asked how old he was. He told me to guess. I knew that he was good friends with Djembo Man so he might be about the same age (Djembo Man just turned 24). He said no. I guessed 23. Nope. “You’re not 22 are you?!” (that’s all I needed - another 22-year old). He smiled and said, “I turn 19 in January”. Oh. Shit. I remained calm. “You turned 19 in January or you will turn 19 in January?” “I will turn 19 in January”. Oh. Shit. I laughed and said he really didn’t look it … cos he doesn’t. He knows that and uses it to his advantage. Anyway we managed to talk about other stuff on the drive back to Mooloolaba (including a rather intelligent conversation about politics! … damn him why couldn’t he have been at least 7 years older!) I tried not to make too much of the age difference, tho he couldn’t have missed that it threw me. When I pulled up in front of the house we looked at each other and smiled, promising to see each other out the next night (he was excited that I was going to be drunk for once - every time we’ve seen each other I’ve been sober lol). We smiled and then “Good night” and he hopped out of the car, tapping my boot lid as he walked past. I waited until he’d crossed the road to the house and then drove off. I smsd Miss Teacher: “He’s only f@!king eighteen!” Her reply was “Did u pash and dash?” Lol priorities. I’m not saying I wouldn’t mind, he’s a cutie (and I wanna see what it’s like to kiss a guy with a pierced tongue :P) but he’s so young!!
Why do all the guys with “the thing”, all the guys I’m attracted to, turn out to be either too young, too old, gay or taken (or a mixture)? It’s so frustrating … but I guess it’s good fodder for my journal.