Discovering Auckland

In December 2014, I resigned from my much-loved position as a humble donut baker and waved goodbye to the horror of 2am shift starts. This conveniently left me with an entirely open Summer ahead of me and no obligations to anyone through the Christmas and New Year period with the minor inconvenience of having no income.

With Christmas and New Year's Eve well celebrated Clem and I had a day to ourselves in central Auckland before she was booked to fly home after which I'd arranged for another couple of days in the city for the sake of urban explorations in a place I'd not yet spent a lot of time alone in.

We booked ourselves into a backpackers just off the lower part of Queen Street, right in the heart of the city who charged us a fairly reasonable rate for a room to ourselves in such a convenient location.

For those unfamiliar with Auckland City culture, the December/ January summer period is the time of year where the city's population is at its lowest, with most of its workers taking off out of the city to enjoy the sun. This being the case, we had the golden opportunity to explore the city without the hordes of people that usually occupy the space.

A thorough K road excursion was of course, a mandatory item on the agenda after fuelling up at The Strand Arcade Cafe (best coffee I've yet had in Auckland). We wandered from end to ecclectic end stopping in anywhere that took our interest. I searched in vain for a second hand guitar shop I'd stumbled across on an earlier trip eventually realising that the arcade it was in had closed up for the New Year period.

We got brunch and more coffee (well, alright, iced chocolates...) from a place in the St Kevin's Arcade complex which a quick google search tells me is called Alleluya. I highly recommend the food and the iced chocolate there. I had a big breakfast which was phenomenal and everything else I saw going to other tables while we were there looked incredible too.

After brunch we headed back to explore more of Queen Street via the Myers Park walkway which is my favourite part of central Auckland. It's this absolutely stunning park and walkway that starts at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to St Kevins arcade and finishes up by a really cool looking old kindergarten on Queen Street. There's a couple of quirky statues on the way and a kids playground that looks like it could be a post-modern sculpture installation. I make a point of walking through it about 5 times a day whenever I'm anywhere near that part of the city.

We made a stop at Real Groovy (again mandatory Central Auckland culture) and spent a bit of time fossicking through their novelty section and books before succumbing to tired feet and heading back to our accomodation to rest up a bit.

It was nice being able to explore central Auckland with Clem a bit, both to show her my favourite parts of it and to do a bit of discovering together. I started writing a poem about the central city that trip which I ended up finishing a little ways after and performing at one of the Poetry In Motion (Wellington poetry group whose events I perform at quite often) open mics. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to perform it at an Auckland venue and get some footage of it up on youtube. When that happens I'll stick it here for you all to see, I feel that it captures my experience of Auckland pretty perfectly.

The next post here will be about returning to work, the start of the cricket world cup and most importantly seeing Shakey Graves live at The Tuning Fork.

Island Hopping

After a thoroughly enjoyable few days on the Barrier with Clem, we made our way back to Auckland by way of a flight and a bus from the airport to Queen Street ready to set off towards our New Year's plans on Waiheke Island.

A flatmate of my best friend Charlie had offered to host a group of us at her dad's place out there so we decided we'd all have a backyard campout in true kiwi style to see in 2015.

Clem and I organised our tickets for the ferry over and killed time shopping for last minute camping supplies before we were supposed to meet up with Charlie and board. He ended up running slightly later than planned so we weren't sure for a while whether we'd make the boat we were hoping for or if we'd have to wait on the next one. He ended up getting there right on time for us to all board together which was helpful for navigation purposes once we got to the other side.

With a conspicuous and uncomfortable amount of gear with us, we found ourselves a few seats on the boat to spread across and settled in. Charlie and I got set up with a couple of beers from the bar/tuck shop thing because there's nothing better than drinking on a boat in the midst of a glorious summer day.

He had a bit to talk about, having just spent a significant amount of time with his other half's family, who I'm pretty sure he'd only just met. She's an Aucklander so I guess he figured the Waiheke plan was a good excuse to tie in spending some time in Auckland and meeting her folks.

On the other side, we offloaded ourselves and our stuff, eventually finding our way to the correct bus stop to get us where we needed to be. This is where having Charlie there came in handy. I had very little idea of where we were supposed to be going or how best to get there. He at least had a vague idea and knew what bus we needed to be on.

Fortunately for us the bus stop we needed was right at the end of the line so there wasn't a lot of real effort involved in finding our way there. We arrived to find the other handful of our people chilling out in a giant marquee which fit a couple of couches, a food table, an air mattress and all of our gear with ample room to move about.

We spent what was left of the day which wasn't a huge expanse of time chatting, drinking and setting up sleeping arrangements (tent in the back yard). Charlie and I took a bit of a walk later on after it got dark which gave me a better idea of the geography around us and ended up down on the beach chatting for a while which was nice. 

The next day was December 31st and absolutely stunning weather-wise. We decided we'd do something with the day and catch the bus into the town-y part of the island where most of the shops and cafes seemed to be to get lunch and spend some time at the beach. 

We wandered around a bit before finally all agreeing to duck into a very busy restaurant where if memory serves correctly Charlie met up with us, having left to collect his other half Lucy who'd just arrived across from auckland on the ferry.

It was a nice spot to sit for a while, with a lovely outdoor area which had a table capable of seating us all (I think there were 8 of us all up) and allowed for a good amount of people watching. We sat and chatted for a bit over a light lunch and a few drinks before clearing out and heading down to the beach not far from there.

There was a bit of a breeze coming through at this point but a few of us were still game to go swimming. I didn't stay in long but it was nice to get some time in the ocean, having grown up spending significant portions of my Summer in and around it. In recent years I've been doing less and less ocean swimming in the Summer months and I definitely miss the feel of salt water on my skin when I've not been in for a good while.

After our swim, we got dried off and headed back over to the house. We organised a troupe to take part in an excursion the the local liquor store and service station to stock up for the night by way of several of us crammed into a four seater car.

With ample supplies acquired we set ourselves up back in our marquee with good music run through a halfway decent speaker and settled in to our intimate celebration of the New Year. 

As the night rolled on and we arrived at the all important moment of truth that is the countdown, I found myself flat on my back in the dewy grass outside the marquee in the most wonderful state of inebriation imaginable. I was with it enough to participate in the countdown and share a New Year's kiss with the woman I love but out of it enough to fully appreciate the magic of the moment, to feel the joy of new beginnings as they should be felt whenever the December 31st clock strikes midnight and rings in January 1st.

Clem, Charlie, Lucy and I all left the next day once everyone had fully woken up and we'd organised our things enough to pack the tent. We'd had a great couple of days on the island but having constantly been in close quarters with other people for the past week or so, I was looking forward to having some decent one on one hangout time with Clem.

We said our goodbyes to the rest of the group, the four of us took the same boat back to Auckland and we all got lunch together at Mad Mex before going our separate ways. It was a nice end to one of the best New Year's celebrations I've yet experienced and it was nice to spend a bit more time with Charlie and Lucy getting to know them as a couple as well.

Our celebration on Waiheke was one I will remember and tell stories of for many year's yet. It was the perfect way to see in 2015 and the group of people that were there are an awesome bunch of humans. I hope next New Year's is at least half as cool as this one was.

The next post here will be about my explorations in Auckland in the early days of January 2015.

A Very Barrier Christmas

For most of my life, I have alternated Christmases every year between Dad's side of the family and Mum's. I spent Christmas 2013 in Tauranga with Dad's side of the family so 2014 was Mum's turn. Usually my grandparents on that side of the family are the ones who host Christmas but this year Mum decided that she wanted to host everyone at her place on Great Barrier Island.

I flew up to Auckland and over to The Barrier a couple of days before Christmas with the plan of staying until a few days after Christmas. Clem was having Christmas with her family but was joining me on the island for a couple of days afterwards.

When I arrived, Mum's parents who I call Marshy (Mum's mum) and Darshy (Mum's dad) were already there. Campbell, Linda and Mum's youngest sister Nicole were also there for Christmas but arrived after me.

It was a lot of fun getting to experience the island in the height of its Summer boom. There were a lot of people around compared to my last visit. A lot of the holiday home owners were enjoying their Summer paradise spots and there were quite a few travellers over for the quality surfing as well.

We did a lot of stuff together, most of which was walking around and seeing places that I hadn't yet seen so that was fun. We also did a lot of eating and drinking in the true spirit of family Christmas. For a few years now, food has been my favourite part of the holiday season, not just the traditional Chrismas lunch but all of the good food before, during and after December 25th itself.

When Campbell arrived we went out and did some fun stuff together which was awesome because we don't get to hang out and do brother stuff all that often any more with having to co-ordinate schedules and such to do so. We took the Kayaks out a couple of times and tried fishing off them albeit unsuccessfully.

Christmas day itself was pretty quiet. It suited the location. We all just chilled out, opened gifts, ate when we felt like it, drank all day. The Barrier has a chill feel to it that sort of inherently impacts everyone in the place. It's a pretty hard place to stress out about anything and the perfect place to relax.

After Christmas, when Clem arrived, I had a couple of things planned to show her. We didn't have a lot of time to do stuff before we were back to Auckland and on to New Year's plans but it was enough to get around some of the cooler stuff on the island.

The main thing we did while she was there was visit the hot spring. We went for a drive across the island in a combined sight-seeing and filling up the car at a cheaper petrol spot adventure and headed to the spring after that. I assumed I'd be able to find the track fairly easily having been there before but I managed to get horrifically lost.

Where I thought the track started was actually the start of a different track. It ended us up in the same place but instead of an easy 15 - 20 minute walk each way we had an hour and a half's walk through rough, storm - damaged track to the spring.

We had a nice relaxing time down at the hot spring after the massive trek we took to get there and on the way out we linked up with the track we were supposed to take so we had an easy walk out. The only problem was that with taking the correct track out, we were about a 15 minute walk downhill from where we'd parked the car.

Being the gentleman that I am and being ever conscious of how far I'd made Clem walk unnecessarily already, I convinced her to sit and wait in a grassy area by the side of the road for me to go up and get the car. After a long uphill trudge on a very hot day whilst horribly thirsty I got to the car, drove down to pick Clem up and we headed home. It was a cool adventure even though it didn't go exactly to plan. Clem probably wanted to murder me by the end of it all, which is fair.

The other notable experience we had was attending an evening of food and music at the Barrier's Thai restaurant. There was a buffet of various Thai dishes and a local band (named Beatz Workin, google them) played a set of classic rock songs from the 60s,70s and 80s. The food was good as was the music and the weather. It was nice to chill out with family and to be able to enjoy everything from a seat at the back with a drink in hand.

The Christmas and Post Christmas festivities on the Barrier were a fun and relaxing time with family and I hope to be able to get back to the Barrier again at some point next summer. It was great to have Clem come over and to be able to show her some of my favourite things that I've experienced on the island so far. I couldn't really have hoped for a more relaxing Christmas.

The next post here will be about New Year's and our trip out to Waiheke Island.

Slam Season 2014

I've been into writing poetry since I could first write in functional sentences as a child. I've been into performing since the first time I had the opportunity to take a stage. When I first discovered that my home city had a performance poetry scene after getting back from exchange in the latter part of 2012 I was beyond excited to get amongst it.

Back then, I got into it by way of signing up for a slam event which acted as a qualifying heat for the Wellington Regional Poetry Slam which in itself acted as a qualifier for the New Zealand National Poetry Slam. I had one piece which I'd barely memorised and a friend along with me for support.

By some miracle I came third in that heat and qualified for regionals. I did a little more writing and brought another piece with me to that event where I didn't end up placing, but I had fun and learned a lot. At this point I was really just feeling out the scene and I was still so nervous on stage that mental blanks were regular.

Fast forward past my 2013 trip to the US. On my return to Wellington I decided to get back involved in the scene. The events I'd competed in before had been put together by a group that now had themselves the name of Poetry In Motion. They met once a month which sounded managable at a bar in town which I'd never heard of at that time having formerly held their events at a rather small pizza place in town.

I decided to once again test my nerves on the slam stage and went along equipped with some new pieces, this time having actually taken the time to write and memorise before the event. Something felt different this time though. When I first slammed the sound of my voice coming at me from the back of the room made me uncomfortable and I felt like a scared little kid on the stage. This time the words were coming out the way I wanted them to, the audience reactions were what I wanted them to be and I felt like I was meant to be on that stage.

The scores I was getting through the night were reflective of a far higher level than anything I'd done prior and I was pretty stoked with myself on that. I was pretty sure that I'd made it into the top 3 again but there were a lot of other really strong performances that night and slam scores can be odd sometimes so nothing's ever a given.

As the third place name was read out, my heart sank a little, I figured that was probably my spot and when it wasn't me called I thought I was done. Second place got called out and the name belonging to it was who I thought would have been the winner but as I said before, slam scores are a little odd sometimes. At this point I was getting ready to congratulate whoever it was that had slotted into first place for the night, waiting for the name to be called.

I damn near cried. This was my third time in a slam poetry event and by some miracle I took first place. There was a cash prize that went along with it but honestly just the sense of belonging and empowerment I got out of that night was more than I ever could've asked for.

This of course meant that I qualified for the regional event later in the year so in my downtime I kept churning out loose lines that eventually got crafted into pieces from which I put together new performance material. I tried out some new stuff on whatever open mics I could get stuff organised for and kept churning through lines in my head trying to get stuff together that felt like it was of a high enough calibre to put out at regionals. I intended on doing the same pieces I'd done in the heat but I also wanted to try and write something in the mean time that could top that.

In the middle of the year, a slam event was organised in celebration of Matariki, essentially the Maori new year. After a little bit of procrastinating and inner debate, I decided to go ahead and sign myself up for it, promising myself that with the deadline of that looming, I'd actually get a new piece finished.

That goal was achieved and so I performed a brand new piece at the Matariki slam. The stage there was awesome. It was set up as part of Te Papa museums official Matarki celebrations so we had the privilege of using their Marae for the event. The place was packed out and there would have easily been a couple of hundred people there.

Unfortunately I didn't make the cut after the first round. I felt that I performed really well, and I got a relatively good reaction so I was feeling slightly hard done by if I'm totally honest. Slam scores don't always make sense though and I had performed the best that I could so I was at least happy with myself for that.

I got a few compliments from people I respect within the community on that particular piece so I shook the overall result of that one off and got working towards the regional final.

At the regional event I broke out a brand new piece which I was nervous about but I felt it would go over well with the audience. I performed better than I ever had before and in an amazingly strong competition, I had the honour of claiming third place. I couldn't believe it! In only my second slam season I'd managed to qualify for the National Poetry Slam finals.

The National Slam was hosted in Wellington on the Poetry In Motion home stage at Meow Bar. It was nice to have the comfort of a home stage in such utterly terrifying circumstances. I was more nervous before the National Slam than I think I've ever been before in my life. I had to down a good couple of beers to stop myself from shaking.

I did the same pieces at Nationals as I did at Regionals but switched up the order a bit because I thought the new one I tried out at Regionals was the strongest one I had and I really wanted to make sure I made the first cut, which eliminated half of the poets.

Again I had the good fortune of some of my strongest performances and the small edits and developments I'd made in pieces since the last slam seemed to go over well. This resulted in me making the first cut which I think left us with a top 7 competing in the second round.

I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to make top 3 although it would've been incredible to have done so. After making the first cut I was just hoping that one of our three Wellingtonian poets would win the night and that the other two might make the top trio.

In the end a Wellingtonian by the name of Ben Stokes took the title of National Slam Champion and as I predicted, I didn't make the top three cut but was more than happy with how my slam season had turned out.

I never even dreamed that I could write and perform well enough to make top 3 in a Wellington regional slam but somehow I managed to back myself enough to pull it off. The 2014 slam season was definitely a huge learning curve for me and gave me a massive boost of confidence towards future performances.

I could not have asked for a better set of results or a higher sense of self satisfaction than what I got out of performance poetry and slamming in 2014. I'm excited to hit the slam stage again this year and see what I can bring to the table. I'm sure I'll find a way to once again surprise myself and exceed my own expectations.

The next post here will be about Christmas 2014 which I spent on Great Barrier Island at mum's house.

My Second 21st Birthday

On Saturday, October 11, 2014, I celebrated my 21st birthday with my closest friends in the city that I grew up in. This was the second of 2 celebrations organised for the occasion and this one was timed to end on my actual birthday which was the day after.

It all started with a group dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town called Red Hill. I'd organised for a group of around 20 of us, including myself, Clemmie, Campbell, Linda and 16 of my friends to meet up there for food and some drinks before unleashing upon the city bars.

Our venue decision was based largely on the central location, cheap dinner prices and B.Y.O. nature of the restaurant and it turned out to be the perfect place to start our night.

Clemmie and I coincidentally ran into Campbell and Linda on the bus into town and the four of us were the first ones to arrive at the restaurant. The place had an interesting looking cocktail list so we sat and ordered some drinks while we waited for other people to get there.

As the others began to arrive, we all just sat around chatting over drinks until all of the seats at the table were filled. Once everyone had arrived we ordered food and ate. I think I ordered the Kung Pao chicken which was delicious. Most of the others brought wine with them so I had a couple of glasses of wine over dinner.

My rough plan for the night was to cruise through a few of the bars in town and end up at The Fringe bar for karaoke to cap it all off. After dinner someone suggested we go up to a park near town and drink up there for a bit. I hadn't done the park party thing since I was in high school and it felt like a good way to get the night going so we convinced the group that it'd be fun.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way to pick up booze and some snack food, I should probably mention that at this point I was dressed in a lion onesie that Clemmie bought me for my birthday which I put on in the restaurant after dinner and continued to wear for the entire night. A friend of mine who works at a pizza place in town stopped there to make some pizzas to bring up to the park as well which was awesome.

Up at the park we had spotify going through someone's phone blasting out of a little speaker thing so we had good music to accompany our juvenile festivities. We managed to get through about half of our supermarket provisions before everyone decided that they'd had enough and that it was a good time to go down and do the karaoke thing so what was left of our group stumbled down toward town to do that.

On the way to town, I checked the time and noticed that it had ticked over onto October 12. It was officially my real birthday!

I don't remember all of the karaoke but I do remember my first song. I did "Forgot About Dre" and absolutely nailed it. People kept coming up to me and telling me how good it was. I'd like to remind you all at this point that I was still dressed in a lion onesie so just let that sink in for a bit.

We had about 6 of our group left with us this late in the night and we all cranked through a couple of songs each. I got talking to a guy outside and told him it was my 21st so he bought me a beer which was nice of him. When we'd all had enough if drunkenly singing in front of strangers we decided to call it a night, so I said my thank - yous and goodbyes to everyone and hopped a bus back home with Clemmie.

The next morning I used the last little bit of money from the party fund to take Clemmie out for a much needed hangover curing breakfast and coffee date at one of my favourite Wellington Cafe's "Sweet Mother's Kitchen." I highly recommend their breakfast burrito, it's absolutely glorious, particularly the morning after a big night.

True to my usual style, I did my 21st in a slightly unconventional way. It was great to be able to celebrate with my family and people who have known me my entire life and I think it worked well holding that as a separate event. It was also fantastic hitting town in the city I've always known as home with the amazing people I've been blessed to have as my close friends.

As is typical of birthdays for me, I feel hardly any different at 21 than I felt at 20. The only thing I can guarantee is that on October 12th 2015, there will be a lot of Taylor Swift playing at my party and I will definitely be feeling 22.

The next post here will be about the excitement of my 2014 slam season and the New Zealand National Poetry Slam.

My First 21st Birthday

On October 12th 2014 I turned 21. All year I'd been thinking about what I wanted to do to celebrate seeing as 21 is an age at which one is obligated to make a relatively big fuss. I decided that I wanted to have two separate parties, one for all of my close friends and one for all of my family.

While that might seem like an obvious avoidance tactic, it was more because the only appropriate venue I could think of for a massive group of people was my grandparents house which is about 2 and a half hours drive out of Wellington.

It seemed to make sense to host the larger family event there and to have a group dinner followed by a night in town with all of my friends for the sake of an optimal invited guest to attending guest ratio.

The first of these two events was the family one which took place the week before my birthday so that it fitted in with Mum's school holidays. Pretty much my entire family was invited along with a few close family friends who I consider to be my family. I also invited Clemmie along because I thought it would be fun to subject my new girlfriend to the terror of meeting my entire extended family a month into our relationship.

I had work the day of the party and caught a ride with my big brother Campbell and his fiancee Linda after my shift. We arrived a few hours before the scheduled start time which gave me a few hours to get some much needed sleep before I had to be presentable and lively.

When we arrived Mum and the grandparents whose house we were borrowing for the evening were busy finishing off decorations and organising food prep. I said a quick hi to them all before I disappeared upstairs to crash out.

Clemmie was one of the first to arrive which was nice for the both of us. It gave her time with not that many people around to slowly be introduced to everyone rather than having to walk in and meet a hundred strangers all at once. It also meant I didn't have to worry about her getting lost trying to find the place for very long.

The place filled up pretty quickly and it was good chatting with everyone and revisiting my entire life through photos over a few drinks. Mum did a really good job of organising everything over the course of the evening and we had a constant stream of good food circling around the house.

About halfway through the evening, after dinner had been served, everyone was rounded up for the whole presents and speeches thing. I've always found it hard to pay much attention to compliments so having several important people in my life all make speeches about how proud of me they are was hard to sit through without bursting into tears but I think I did alright. It was really nice having both of my parents there particularly during this part of the night too. I haven't had a huge amount of significant life events where both of them have been around so that was cool.

I got a lot of really cool presents as well, from stuff that will prove exceptionally useful in future travel, to things with meaning that actually did make me cry, I even got the laptop that I'm typing this blog post on (thanks mum).

My family 21st was a great night and I'm glad I had so many people that were able to come along and celebrate it with me. I had an awesome time, ate great food, got exceptionally drunk, all the things that should be done at a good party. It was the perfect way to celebrate 21 years of life with a group of people who have known me for most if not all of those 21 years.

My next post here will be about the celebration I had with my friends for my 21st birthday.

The Particularly Good Christmas Party

In December 2013, after recently returning from the U.S. (rather begrudgingly) I made the snap decision to attend a Christmas themed party at my friend Floyd's house. Fitting with the theme which asked us to wear either green or red coloured clothing I was dressed in sneakers, grey jeans and an Aaron Rodgers jersey which for those of you who know nothing of American Football is a dark green colour, Rodgers being the quarterback for Wisconsin's NFL team the Green Bay Packers.

Said party was the first social occasion I had attended since returning to the country after an 8 month absence. This was the chief influence on my decision to go and I expected nothing more than a night of light drinking and catching up with good friends I hadn't seen in a while.

A few minutes after arriving I was introduced to a rather attractive girl with bright red hair who was in a gorgeous dress and instantly made me question my fashion choices. This seemingly inconsequential meeting lead to further conversation later in the evening regarding cats and over-analysis of popular music which also seemed to be and at the time was completely innocuous.

Throughout the evening I had many other interactions with old friends and other people I'd just been introduced to and went home thinking not a whole lot more about it all. At some point one of us added the other on facebook and we liked each other's music pages and I was happy to have made a new friend.

Then she went off to England to study abroad for a year and I more or less forgot about her and carried on with my day to day existence.

A few months later, a movie came out called The Fault In Our Stars. Based off of the book of the same title by my favourite Young Adult author John Green, I saw the movie about 7 times over the course of its cinema run. After my third viewing, Floyd from the earlier paragraph about the Christmas party, organised a group of us to go and see it together.

One of our friends in this group extended the invite to none other than the girl from earlier, who I should probably mention does actually have a name, which is Clemmie. She was back from her adventures in the U.K. and apparently also quite the fan of John Green.

She came along and brought her best friend Chloe with her. I again conversed with her briefly, thought not much of it except that she was an okay human being to converse with and went on with my life.

As time went on, she became a regular feature on our thursday night quiz team, which resulted in me talking to her more and more. We got along reasonably well and after a bit, we started to miss questions in quiz due to being so wrapped up in conversation.

One week after quiz, we all went out to celebrate my friend Nathan's 22nd birthday. We hit a few bars, had a bit to drink and capped off the evening with karaoke at The Fringe bar. I think I did a rendition of Outkast's "Miss Jackson" that night. Karaoke is one of my favourite things to do on a night out, and rap is my favourite genre to do at karaoke given how incredibly white I am.

At the end of the evening, Clemmie offered to drive me home, I accepted and so began a tradition that would last for the next 3 weeks which involved her driving 15 minutes in the opposite direction of her house to drop me off at mine, me completely missing the point and thinking it was very generous of her to do so and both of us wondering what was going on.

On a Sunday night, our friend group usually does movie night at Floyd's house. After about 3 weeks of Clemmie driving me home every time we hung out with the group and us basically conversing with only each other in said group situations, nothing much had changed. Well, apart from the fact that I had now realised that I was crazily into her, everyone else was relentlessly giving me shit about it and I was starting to think that maybe there was an ulterior motive to driving me home. Halfway through this particular movie night, we were all gathered in the kitchen making dessert pizza when Clemmie said she was cold.

Given that I'd been sitting next to her all night debating whether or not I should try to put my arm around her, I took the opportunity I saw in front of me. I went to the lounge, got us a blanket and draped it around us both, using one of my arms to hold my end of the blanket around me and putting the other around her. She seemed to be into it.

When we returned to the couch, we put the blanket over the both of us and I put my arm back around her. The rest of the movie played out with the two of us cuddled up adorably and I felt like things were going pretty well.

At the end of the night, she drove me home, we talked for the entire trip and when we arrived... I said "thanks for the ride" , probably followed by "I'll see you at quiz."

I then spent the better part of the next few days kicking myself for being far too anxious to actually address the situation. I guess I just wanted to let Sunday be a good day in itself rather than ruining the evening by chancing rejection.

On Thursday, I was determined to put the whole thing to rest one way or the other. As per usual we talked pretty much only to each other all night, at the end of the night it was a given that she'd give me a ride home (at this point there wasn't even a verbal exchange about it any more) and so it went.

The entire car ride I felt physically ill and my heart was beating at an unhealthily rapid rate as I went over and over the speech I'd been rehearsing since I'd left her car the previous Sunday. I was struggling to keep my end of the conversation going as a million different panicked thoughts drifted in and out of my head.

When she pulled up outside my house, I very nearly said thanks and left the same way I had every previous time but I managed to mentally slap myself and force out what I felt needed to be said. I took a deep breath and uttered something to the effect of "Although I enjoy the flirtatious friendship we have going on, I would very much like to be your boyfriend." To which she responded positively with a look on her face which seemed to say a combination of "I'm so glad this is happening" and "It's about time you said something, you oblivious dick!"

And that pretty much sums up the story of how I, by some miracle, got together with the most wonderfully intelligent, beautiful and absolutely hilarious woman I have ever met. As I write this I have had the truly blessed experience of sharing my life with her for almost 8 months and have every intention of adding to that number infinitely.

So I guess if there's anything to take away from this story it's this: Never turn down a Christmas party invite.

The next post here will be about the first of 2 magnificent parties I had to celebrate the grand life achievement that is turning 21.