*ded*

My first photo on my blog as a new wife is just like me - classy.

So I am back from my wedding, which wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I had some horrible people treat me in some horrible ways (see "I am not a Bridezilla" and then add another 20 crappy things, only from 'friends') right up until the wedding so I was nervous, stressed and basically on the verge of calling the whole thing off. ("Why get married if nobody will be there!?" I cried.)

It was worth it and I'd do it 100 times. The people that were there... well, they were the ones that mattered, now weren't they? Some of my closest friends came hell or high water, risking even death (!) to come to my wedding!

But now, now I know I have surrounded myself with quite possibly the world's best people. I have great taste, I think. Looking around at my wedding at all the people that were there for me just made me realize that it really isn't about quantity, but about quality and damned if my wedding was based on quality guests, I'd get a fucking medal.

At one point I was standing in the aisle and we all realized nobody had my music! My music! What were we going to do? All of a sudden one of my closest friends says to me, "Wait, I have a solution!" and whispers to me. I forgot. My friend.. is an opera singer. And only usually a drunk one. But there we go, stone cold sober and she sings for me. Sings loud and clear and beautifully for me to walk down the aisle. Screw iPods. Screw predone orchestrated music from a speaker system. I accidentally had a live opera singer sing me down the aisle. Beat that from your friends!

I am looking forward to writing out thank you cards. Wedding gifts rule. So thoughtful, really. I want to describe the things I got but I fear if I forget one, I will be just distraught with horror at the idea of offending someone who gave me a fantastic gift. Let it be known though that there wasn't a single damn gift I either didn't need, didn't want or couldn't use a million times over. And I'm hard to shop for!! Some people actually got me kitchen things I didn't have! Who can do that? My friends!

So now it's all over and my mother is gone, the coffee machine broke during the wedding so it's not on the counter, the dishes are all over the place, my candles are in a box in the garage... and sadly when we got home, one of our parrots had to be taken care of until she passed on, so her cage is missing as well. The house feels eerily empty and like we just moved into it - what with living out of laundry baskets and plates on the counter. I'm working on fixing it up - but we're still missing my adorable parrot sounds.

So it really IS like a new beginning for us, I suppose. We're putting away all our beautiful gifts (sheepskin rugs! two person woven picnic sets! digital photo frames! Tupperware! blankets! booze! GOOD BOOZE! Money! Shit I did what I said I wouldn't!) and even our own stuff so it does feel all brand new.

I feel different, the boy doesn't. I feel older and more mature. Possibly because I nearly killed myself with stress. I think I aged 6 years. I also lost some hair. Okay, I lost a lot of hair. But nobody noticed. Nobody even noticed my missing earring (except just before the wedding one whole person did). I stressed for nothing.

So now it's time for peppermint tea and naps. With kangaroos.

This Story Explains Me Pretty Well

I'm starting to think I might be a tad impulsive. Ah, who am I kidding, we all know I'm impulsive. I have the natural self-preservation instinct of a chicken. Anyone who's owned chickens knows they'd most probably just sleep as their beloved was being murdered next to them by a fox and then act surprised when they get eaten next - if they actually wake up for it. I'm fairly certain when a chicken is being eaten alive at night, it opens an eye and goes, "Gee, I'm being eaten. Oh well, as long as he doesn't wake me." So yes, my point is, this appears to be the level of self-preservation I have.

So this introduction leads me to my next story; where I somehow ended up in the rainforest with a complete stranger showing me around with a machete. Logically, this would be a very bad situation, right? Like - hello, 24 year old woman by herself with a strange man in a forest - clearly I have no sense of danger - or I have an incredible sense of adventure. My mother prefers the word 'wrecklessness'. Whatever you call it, it's gotten me into some crazy situations. Not all I've loved, but most of them I have.

So let's back up. My fiance has been talking on and on and on about this excavator he's been wanting for ages that's bogged down in some guy's back-alley hidden farm. $1500 and if he can fix it, he can have it. Apparently this is an excellent deal for excavators are expensive. I have no idea. All I know is The Boy asked me if I could go drive 2 hours after what amounted to enough sleep to barely function in normal society. So of course, by the time I get there, my already meager sense of not dying was lowered below it's usual reserves.

So we meet these two swagmen, right. Now, for Americans - swagmen are Outback bush ranger types without the ranger bit. They love the land and wear big boots and cut down trees and sleep under the stars and grow beards and, well, are men. Think Brokeback Mountain, but less gay. Or more gay - I haven't really figured it out. But these are the men that eat out of cans of beans they heated over a fire and since they don't have a fork, they just use their dirt-encrusted hands to scoop the beany goodness into their mouths. Those kind of men. Real men.

So they meet us with our white ute and trailer carrying a boat (this is another story) on their own four-wheelers. As they lead us through this huuuuge pathway between state forests, I start noticing bizarre looking orange trees. Bumpy little oranges dot the pathway. So do bizarre animals, trees, rivers and funny-shaped natural structures. Point being, I wasn't in Kansas anymore, Toto. As we're following these two swagmen on their four-wheelers, they are using a machete to cut down overhanging trees and branches, leading us up this windy dirt road for miles.

So, again, just to be clear - I don't know these men's names. I've never met these men. Neither has my fiance. My fiance's father, who is with us, is probably the only person who has someone at home waiting for him in case he turns up missing - but since my fiance had the address, she probably didn't really know where he went. So as we're bumping through a rainforest path following two men with machetes I came upon the realization that, hey, they could kill us and nobody would even begin to know where to look for us.

We finally get to the destination and, lo and behold, there really IS an excavator for my fiance to look at. Well, I'll be damned. So - not being one for digging things I got a bit bored and started poking at the four-wheelers, which the men had gotten off at this point. I mentioned to one of the bushmen that I saw some really funny orange trees and did he mind if I picked some oranges.

"Ah those be bush lemons mate! Not oranges. I've got a million of 'em. I'll chop down 10 trees and you can take 'em home with ya if ya want!"
I was a bit taken aback, "Uh that's not, er, necessary. I'd rather just pick a few."
He looked at his partner and pointed up to the hills, while still talking to me, "Well there be some juicy juicy lemon trees up in the mountain but you need the fourwheeler to get them. Hey Sammy, take the girl on the four-wheelers to get some lemons from the good trees!"

So, let me elaborate again. Bushman #1 says to Bushman #2, hey.. take this lady on a strange vehicle up a mountain, far away from us, so she can pick lemons. Oh, by the way, she doesn't know your name, my name, or if the machetes we use have ever killed people. Did I mention I'm impulsive?

Instead of the normal human reaction of, "Oh this is probably a bad idea." I went, "Cool!! I can drive a four wheeler and pick lemons!? Awesome!!!" Logically, at the time, this made perfect sense to me. Now, mind you, we're in a fucking rainforest. So there's no paths, no tracks... and a lot of logs, creeks and bumpy things. Oh, and I've never driven a four-wheeler except once and it was on flat land. I have, however, ridden dirt bikes. Once. So logically, I think, "This can't be much different, can it?!"

So after ten minutes trying to figure out why the clutch was actually a brake, I got the girl going at a level that was reasonable. However, my first task appeared to be 'cross this 6' deep gully with a river in the bottom of it'. "Okay!" my lack-of-proper-judgment-brain said to me, "I can do this!"

So. Riding a four-wheeler is pretty much exactly nothing like riding a dirt bike. Except the part where you hit the throttle and pray for the ever loving grace of G-d that you're going to make it over the top of the bend without falling over backwards and ending up underneath a four wheeler, in a ditch, covered in river, on fire. There's a joke in that last sentence.

Before I decided it was a brilliant idea to make my first trip on a four-wheeler to cross a freakin river, my fiance decided to give me advice.

"Now remember, when you're going down, lean back. When you're going up, lean forward."

Yep. That's it. Not, "Hey and if the jolly swagman decides to cut off your neck, be sure to roll your head this way so we know to run." or, "If the river starts to carry you away, hold your breath as long as possible." No, this is not the advice he gives me. "Lean forward on the up and back on the down," was the best he could do.

And me? I thought this was excellent advice. Because, apparently, as compulsive as I am - he is just as equally trusting. Go! Go risk your life crossing dams so you can pick lemons with an unknown swagman carrying a myriad of knives, but just rememeber, lean back on the down and forward on the up. Yep. That seemed good advice to me.

Glynn's father, who is probably a bit more logical than us, handed me a knife 'for the lemons' he said. So I pocketed this tiny little golden utility knife feeling perfectly safe that against a man with a machete, this would be adequate protection. Did I mention I'm impulsive?

I don't know how I managed, but I crossed the gully with the river in it just fine. Maybe it's because I leaned forward on the up. Most likely it's because I just went, "Shit shit shit shit shit," and hit the throttle. And of course LEAPED over the top edge of the gully. Which, if you've ever done it, is exactly what makes you love the damn vehicles. So, with a renewed sense of "Fuck yeah I can totally do this!" I followed the jolly swagman deep into the jungle to pick fucking lemons, man.

You know what's awesome about open-air vehicles that cover raw land? That the thing you want to do, as opposed to the thing you should be doing are two completely different things. So when you want to lean into a corner, you really...really...shouldn't. I wish I could draw you a picture but imagine me, young redheaded female, on a massive 4-wheeler, pretty much sideways on the side of a mountain leaning into the corner before going, "Shit, I think this is how you fall the fuck over." and suddenly trying to counter balance in the opposite direction.

I guess just picture a redheaded praying mantis stuck to a flying rock, sideways. Got that picture in your head? That's what I looked like. Oh, and I wasn't wearing a helmet. Of course. I was in the damn jungle and in the damn jungle YOU DON'T WEAR HELMETS. Got that? Although I don't know why I'm mentioning this. There's fucking machetes in this story - I don't think the helmet was really my biggest problem here.

So we got to the lemon trees. I know, I'm a bit surprised they existed too. Did you know that bush lemons are absolutely covered in spines? Yeah well I didn't.

(Photographic Evidence I am not dead)*

So we come back with our bags filled with delicious bush lemons and my man is still checking out the escavator. I tell Swagman #1 that I really loved his land and it was very pretty and I thanked him for the lemons. This is when he said to me, "You should see the waterfall!"

"Waterfall? There's a waterfall!?"
"Yeah mate, up in the forest on the mountain. She's a beaut. 8 feet deep and just beautiful."
"Do we have time to see the waterfall!?" I look at Glynn with big sooky eyes, just begging him to let me go out with a strange bushman carrying a foot-long blade once more into the forest on a vehicle I've never driven up a mountain over rocks with no helmet. Yeah, read that again. Glynn said, "Yeah sure, you can do that!"
What a good man.

So Swagman #2 takes me back up the mountain, but this time on a different path, a much less travelled path. Okay, it wasn't even a path. It was a bunch of broken twigs leading the way; and every now and then the swagman would stop and break more twigs 'to help guide the way again'. So when I say I'm in the middle of nowhere, I am not kidding.

Once more I am sideways praying mantis. Upside down praying mantis. Downhill praying mantis. Basically, I was slowly climbing a barely-trecked mountainside on this vehicle that couldn't go past 14km (because, yes, at this time I also thought "how fast can this thing go?" - however it might go up to 15 or even 16, considering I was going uphill on wet rocks at the time). This is when the swagman stops and points, "You see these trees lining the path? Yeah they're poison, I'd put on me jacket if I were you. This is why I wear gloves, mate."

Poison. Trees. What. The. Fuck. Australia.

Also, at this point I'm really praying the cut on my head really DID come from the lemon tree. After what seems to me to be about half an hour, we have to get off the vehicles and start walking because the four-wheelers valued at around $17k each couldn't go across this part even though they had just trekked up a fucking mountain. Dude.

Next thing I know I'm jumping down huge gullies, skipping rocks across gushing rivers and at one point I kid you not, I had to cross a beam of wood the men had cut around a rock to serve as a 3" deep platform you could hold onto the rock for balance and cross to get to the other side. Mind you I am wearing little platform shoes made of rubber and a trenchcoat, along with a glittery studded Guess top. Mind you, Swagman #2 was wearing steeltoed boots, utility pants, a Drizabone coat, thick leather gloves and was carrying a fucking machete. I still had my tiny gold utility knife. You know, for the lemons.

Finally the swagman says to me, "Here she is."

In front of me is quite possibly the most beautiful natural thing I have ever seen. A giant slab of water-worn rock rests atop a carefully balanced boulder, a sheet of thick crystal clear water slicing across the air. The rainforest trees, with their thick wet foliage and thick twisted vines encased the entirety of the waterfall in it's roots. Soft green luscious moss splattered the shiny gray wet rocks like something carefully painted by only the finest of French artists.

The best part. The best part was the sounds. If you closed your eyes you felt like you had turned your favourite Sounds of the Rainforest CD on surround and managed to have million-dollar speakers. It was the live version of a natural symphony. The music of the rainforest was incredible. Cicadas wrote lovesongs in the trees. Parrots played among the twisted vines, announcing their adoration for the waterfall in playful clucks. The waterfall pounded on the rocks in front of me, the sounds of rushing water heavy and thick and so incredibly close. The hairs on my arms stood on end.

"Cleanest water you'll find. You should try some." he said as he pointed to the fall with his knife.

I couldn't help it. I had to do it. I climbed down the last couple feet to the base of the fall and skipped the slimy slippery wet rocks across the gushing river and shovelled both hands directly into the gushing water. Three times I drank from the beautiful pure rainforest waterfall, the splashes soaking my coat and hair with beads of crystalline droplets. Feeling as if more than three mouthfuls would render me 'greedy', I pulled away from the moment. I swear I could hear the ripping sound of my brain being snapped back into the real world.

I climbed back up the fall, back across the wooden plank, back through the rivers and gulleys, back onto the ATVs, back sideways down the mountain and back into the real world.

So this is the story of how I followed strangers into the rainforest without knowing a thing about what I was getting into and having one of the most beautiful moments imaginable. I'm fairly certain that when you do something so wreckless, there should be consequences, not rewards. So I'm guessing this will end up being the story of how I got Cholera. Watch.

*Textual evidence I exaggerate greatly.

C'est la vie.

Such is life. No more, no less. Such is life. Why then, are these words considered so negative? Never are they used to describe happy events. And yet, in an of themselves, they are very neutral. So why do we not say, "Today I relaxed on the beach with my toes in the sand. Ah, c'est la vie!"? I think we should. Change the drudgery of our daily expressions to be just that bit more positive.

This goes for a lot of things - and it's also advice I myself need to take more. In and of themselves, words, people, objects and feelings are neither negative nor positive - it is simply the projection of our own bias we use to make them so. I vividly recall "horrible" events in my life that I woed over for many days before they magically seemed to turn into great wonderful things.

Take my meeting my fiance, for a small example. I met him because my motorbike decided it was not going to turn off. Ever. The ignition had broken and I was devastated. I had only had the bike for a few months! I got a couple offers from some dirty old man to fix it, but declined out of some sort of fear he might hurt me. When I continued to look for a new ignition I was met with much resistance. Bike shops had closed down for good. Parts were hard to source. Excuses were made.

Finally the dirty old man said to me, "I have the part right here if you're willing to come and get it." I so was not. I was scared, I admit, that he might use this way 'in' as an attempt to sleep with me. I was right, I suppose. Turns out the dirty old man was actually rather young, but still dirty (not minded! just dirty! covered in it!). He fixed the part for me, somehow convinced me to see him and again and my horrible messed up motorbike turned into me begrudgingly meeting some man I didn't want to meet - only to be marrying him in near one hundred days now.

Obviously the 'bad' in this example is not very bad, but I make a small point still. I have had much worse things happen in my life that have also turned good (one of these days I'll tell you how I ended up in Australia) but at the time, I didn't think they were good at all. Ranging from the time I was homeless to my husband leaving me for a teenage girl - those horrible things would not have put me in the place I am now.

So, I'd like to make a small suggestion. Not to you, not to me, just to the anyone who wants to think about it or consider for a moment their own lives. All those moments you sighed longingly and said to yourself, "C'est la vie," in frustration at something plaguing your life - that it didn't end up so bad after all. Even the worst things in life have meaning - this I know from the bottom of my heart. So perhaps we need to change not the definition but the feeling behind the words we say.

C'est la vie. Such is life. And it can be great.

Happy and Mad!

I am up and down today. My moods keep either being really happy with life or really angry at people. I think both are still true.

The male has gone to a trip to my most favourite place ever and left me behind. To be fair, he's going for work and to be fair, I'm still in the midsts of some bizarre liver failure (more on that later). It's not like I could go if I wanted. Boo!

I'm happy with it though. We don't spend enough time apart where he just does his own thing and I do mine. We're either together - or he's at work. No inbetween. It's not that I'm sick of him it's just that the bastard (false, his parents were and still are married) really needs his own hobbies and life away from me. So now he's at a pub, hopefully drinking his arse off. I've directed him to the nearest strip club and am glad I'm the one holding the credit card. If his work is done before the arvo tomorrow he promised to go into the city and buy me my favourite chocolates! Yay! They don't have them in Brisbane.

I have plans that involve George Clooney now. I invited him over for some champagne and orange juice (he can drink, but I can't). No, I'm not delusional, I just like making up stories in my head and pretending they're real. Delusional would be BELIEVING they're real. Completely different. Completely.

I rented a couple George Clooney flicks and there's some salmon baking in the oven so I can make this recipe for cauliflower fritters. Fresh salmon instead of smoked. Eh. I setup a blanket on the floor of the livingroom and am about to climb into my most comfortable pyjamas to settle in for the night. Paint my nails. Read a book in the tub later with some of my bathbombs. I might make a bubble bar tonight too, seeing as I ran out the other day. I love being crafty!

The bad parts were really, once more, my doctor's negligence over my health and, once more, Telstra's negligence over my service. I guess what people and companies don't realize is I...kinda don't give up. My fiance told me Telstra pulled the same stuff with him and he just gave up. I refuse to. There's a LOT of flaws with their claims in rebuttal to my claims and I'm gonna wring 'em. Yay! As for the doctor - I have a specialist lined up for a second opinion already. On. The. Ball! Boo-yah!

There's a list of four diseases I might have. Some are just flu type things. Some can reoccur so I need to be careful if I have those and some I carry for life, but can manage. Nothing is deadly, which is remarkable news. Of course, this is just preliminaries - the specialist can confirm or deny my results for me on Thursday next week. Each disease, though, my doctor says, WILL leave me tired and exhausted for a long time. All of them cause severe tiredness for months. Nice.

Still can't go back to work. Ah well. I was thinking of working from home. I sometimes work as a chat hostess and can make anything, depending on how hard I decide to work. And it's freelance so I can take a break whenever I need if I feel my liver acting up. (Ever felt your liver? It's WEIRD.) I dunno, I just HATE not working. I love working and I love bringing in money and I love saving it.

Speaking of which, I did my taxes. I love doing that too. I think it triggers that little niggly slightly-OCD side of me (I should really check if I actually have OCD... I mean, really.. I organize my cans alphabeticallty by type, name and then size [like fruit-apples is before vegetables -peas]). Anyway - I liked it. I spent all day yesterday relaxing doing my taxes and drinking coffee and getting excited when I remembered another receipt. I managed over 4k in deductions on the car!! Score one for Lizzer!

So yeah... basically what I said. Happy with life. Mad at people. Life IS good. Stressful, but good. I have salmon. How can life not be good?