2002-10-07 at 10:57p.m.

Sorry, no Matchmaking Kittens today. Next entry, I promise. I've been a little busy of late. Perhaps you'd like to hear about it? Well...

I just got back yesterday from the Chamber Choir's 4 day visit to Brisbane, a tour notable for its high levels of organisation and preparedness (man, it is so hard to type sarcasm.) I spent Wednesday- all Wednesday- in a small bus with thirteen other Chamber Choir members. All was relatively normal- or as normal as it tends to get, which, to be honest, isn't very normal at all- until Charissa broke out her 'Special Chocolate Cake'. I, who know never to accept baked goods from Charissa, didn't eat any of it, but I was one of the few who didn't. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, the bus was filled with giggly, lethargic people with the munchies.

Later that afternoon, the bus started making funny noises. We pulled over next to a sugar cane field, at which point it promptly refused to move. Nigel and Geoff (the drivers) spent a few minutes arguing over what had gone wrong with the engine, before noticing that the petrol gauge was lodged on 'empty', and we'd been driving on fumes for twenty k's.

Nice one, guys.

All the boys went off to pee in the canefields while we radioed the second bus (containing our choir director, our luggage, and a few other choristers). They managed to get some petrol from a nearby servo, and, thankfully, we were on the road again.

One of the boys discovered a doll in the cane field while taking a piss. It was the kind with a suction cap to stick it to the window, and it had black hair, lairy pants, a beer bottle in it's hand, and an enormous shit eating grin on it's face.

We promptly named it Charissa II.

We stopped for dinner at a truck stop in Ballina, known for having a gigantic fibreglass prawn stuck on top of it. (Aussies really know how to do a good national landmark. Houses of Parliament? Boring. A tower built by the French? Pah! Some slanty italian building? Shoddy foundation work. Nup, slap a giant fibreglass animal, plant or object on something, you've got yourself a classy tourist spot. I personally have seen- the Big Prawn, the Big Banana, the Big Trout, the Big Ram, the Big Pineapple, the Big Mosquito, and the Big Guitar.) While we were stopped, we dropped in to the nearest bottlo, and bought ourselves an awful lot of beer.

Twenty minutes later, and the bus was strewn with empty bottles and drunk people, I was teaching the entire bus a very bawdy christmas carol, and the drivers were looking uncomfortable.

Eventually, we arrived at the place we'd be staying- a little church just outside of Brisbane on whose floor we'd be crashing. The girls got the chapel, the boys got the Sunday School (no fair, giving the boys all those fun toys) and we crashed.

The next day, we performed at St Stephen's Church, which went fairly well, apart from me getting one entry quite severely wrong and earning the patented 'look of death' from our conductor. Afterwards, we went back to the church, got changed, then headed back into town.

We found this great little Irish Pub called 'Irish Murpheys' in the centre of town. It served pints. Pints. And played crappy eighties music. I was in heaven.

The next day we sang at the University of Queensland, along with a rural high school choir from Queensland somewhere. It was quite an amusing contrast- the high school choir tended to sing very inspirational, uplifing, pretty, tuneful pieces, and we sang a song that swore, ripped off jazz standards, and was generally in bad taste.

It was great.

After that, we went out and had a bit of a shop in Brisbane.

We decided to stay at the church that night, and get horribly, terribly drunk there. So we had a BBQ, bought some beer, and the party began.

After a while, the party became very blurry.

Then... well, let's just say I can add 'church' to the list of places I've thrown up in.

I don't really remember much of what happened after that, but I was very impressed when I was informed that I'd managed to successfully shower myself before I went to bed. I have absolutely no idea how I managed that. None at all. Especially since I calculated I'd drunk almost half a case of beer on my own in under three hours. Half a goddam case. I have no idea how I did that, either.

The next day, a very groggy and remorseful choir woke late the next day. After a late breakfast of cereal and (in my case) humility, we went out shopping in Brisbane again, then went and sang in a choir masterclass, which was full of uplifting American religious music. Nails on a chalkboard had nothing on it.

That night, most of us eschewed the alcohol, and we wound up playing theatre games in the church hall until one in the morning. My favorite one was a game entitled 'Spin Till You Can't Stand Up', which I think is pretty self explanatory.

Yesterday, we drove back here. Hoorah.

So, that's the very long winded and boring explanation of why there are no Matchmaking Kittens today. But there will be. Soon. Oh, yes. Very soon.