A great night of jazz!

Tonight was just an awesome night. The deal was for me to meet up with this guy called Hans, who I had met at the South Bank social run by Mark O'Brien's Gotta Swing a couple of weeks ago, for a coffee. So I met up with him at 8.30pm, we went for a coffee, then we walked along the river around the base of the Kangaroo Point cliffs, until we got up to the point where we were virtually opposite from the side of the river where Mark and I watched the Riverfire fireworks from the week before. So we were chatting away, and then walked back to South Bank to find a cafe, but found that they were all closing (it was about 11.15 or so), so because we decided that we wanted to stay out a little longer, I decided to take Hans to Park Road where there are some really nice cafes that are always open til late. Park Road is also home to Brisbane's very tacky mini Eiffel Tower, so it could have been of interest to the swede.

So we drove there, walked along Park Road, walking to the end to see what was there. The thing is I knew that there was a new jazz club that had opened there called Maggie Black's, so I wanted to see if we could find it and check it out. After walking to the end of the street, we doubled back to go to the cafe, and lo and behold I saw the sign - we had walked straight past it. So I suggested we go inside, Hans happy to oblige, and because we got there quite late we didn't have to pay the cover charge to see the band.

Now here is the great part: when we went upstairs to where the band was playing, I recognised the lead singer of the band, Melissa Western. She was the girl who used to coordinate the demo dances Mark C and I used to do at the Brisbane Jazz Club before I went overseas, and was/still is the president of the BJC. So that was great. We got there in time to listen to the last song, and they played a great rendition of "Route 66". So after they finished, I went up to speak to Melissa, to say hello, and mention to her that I had wanted to chase her up at some stage to teach me to sing (43 things - currently #6 on the list). Then we got talking for a little while, and the BJC has business improve by more than 100% over the past year, and they were holding a new General Meeting soon to elect people to the committee. Then I mentioned that I would love to become a member of the BJC, and Mel got excited because she said that there was one space that was free on the committee and she said that I would be great in that position. Cooincidentally, the last day to become a member, and thus be eligible to be part of the committee, is tomorrow. So I promised that I would drop by the BJC tomorrow (which is now today), and sign up for it.

Then I was about to head out the door, when someone sitting near the door said "hey" to me with a big smile on his face. It was Greg! He's a guy that I used to know from high school, who went to churchie, and was part of the extended version of my ex-boyfriend's group. Brisbane can be such a small world! Anyway it turns out he's now working for the bjc. He was sitting at that table with another guy who works at the bjc who recognised me from the days I did the demo dances (who I didn't recognise, but anyway).

So we had a bit of a discussion, and he told me that he saw Scott, my ex-boyfriend from grade 12, the other day! It was amazing. I'd been thinking about him a little bit recently, wondering what happened to him. I remember even saying to Nikki when I saw her a couple of weeks ago before she went back to Japan, that I wish I knew what happened to him, and that I'd like to see him again just to apologise to him for being such an unstable girlfriend (I wasn't quite as level headed then as I am now). Apparently he's been going out with this girl from my high school who was in the year below me for the past 2 years, but she's just gone off to japan (geez, everyone's going to japan!). Actually on another vaguely related note, from memory, Simone (the name of Scott's girlfriend) went to primary school with Nikki*.

So back to the matter of the jazz club, I'm really excited at the idea of being part of the committee for the bjc - of course provided I get elected. If business has increased as much as Melissa says it has, it's going to be very exciting times. And it will be cool to see more of Greg again. I'd seen him a couple of times playing drums on the street near the taxi rank line in the valley before I went overseas, so I sort of assumed that he'd become a bit of a junkie. But he seemed to have his head well and truly screwed on straight tonight, so maybe I was mistaken.

I'm excited about tomorrow!


*Mental note: flag this with Nikki