Party Party Party (x3)

I went to THREE parties this weekend. Good gracious golly gosh. Takes me back to my younger days.

Party #1
Drinks at Ed's on Friday night.

Ed made mulled wine. I like mulled wine. He also made saveloys. Ed has an affinity for old-school party snacks. And food shaped like animals. I got butter chicken from the best take-away Indian shop in Wellington and ate it by myself. It was good to see The Posse together again and planning future adventures out Lake Ferry way.

I did not get drunk. I chatted to Ryan about his love life, always interesting. Ryan has sworn off alcohol altogether. He is now a tee-totaller to aid his body building. As he admitted, he can be obnoxious WITHOUT the aid of any other substances. He spent the night macking on two girls, one of whom voluntarily gave her his number (wheeee). At times we eavesdropped and heard him talking about diseases and thought that wasn't a smooth move, but then we looked over and he was doing muscle-flexing poses, which the girlies LOVED.

Drunken appearances were made by several friends and colleagues, some of which were amusing. I spent some time in the kitchen listening to Sam and Matt talk about dorky boy-things. Matt tried to force me into PDAs and insisted it was ok if we were obscured by a pole. I did not believe him.

We were walking home past Liquor King and a young man stopped us in the street and said, 'Hey man - can I borrow your girlfriend?' To my relief, Matt quickly answered, 'NO!' and walked on. We turned to listen to the fellow's reasoning, and he explained he'd found a girl in the street who was comaed out and wouldn't talk to them and he thought she might respond better to a fellow girl. Matt calmly said that she didn't look like she was fit to respond to ANYBODY, so good luck buddy.

Party #2
Morgan's Squatter Party

Saturday night brought the apartment party on the Terrace. Now, just getting into this one was an intelligence test. I sent an SOS text to Sam, then heard him yelling ‘I can seeeee you’ from SOMEWHERE nearby and up high. But I looked up and saw nobody. I felt like I was in the movie ‘The Game’. Me, down below in an empty court-yard. People looking down on me from above. Some cryptic intercom system where you had translate an apartment number into a four digit code.

I have a small fear of intercom systems. I hate telephones anyhow, so intercoms are even worse. I’m not even sure what you’re supposed to say into them.

Once I got inside I liked the smell of the hallways. They had that motel-smell of air-freshener and cleaning products. Kinda new smelling. I made my contribution to the Benny-Bucket (finally finding a use for part of the present I bought Ange’s now-ex-boyfriend before I was uninvited to his party).

Sam and me hopefully made an arty-photo out on the balcony with a party-popper and an extended exposure. I was glad to help Sam in his new hobby of ‘photographing things other than planes’.

I chatted to some Ultimate people and had to make multiple excuses as to why getting up early(ish) on a Saturday morning and practising throwing Frisbees in the mud was not something I could do….. Many a good conversation was had about T-shirts. Sam had a sci-fi one on, Morgue had a cryptic algebraic equation on his and I had an elk on mine. There was another conversation where Sammy was musing about how he finds it hard to drink alcohol when he has a cold. I said (fairly innocently, I thought) that there are other things that are very difficult when you have a cold too. Fish knew exactly what I meant.... and Sam contributed the phrase 'smothered, but in a good way'.... I'll say no more.

Party #3
Matt’s Friends on The Terrace

I had had two vodka-and-red-bulls by this stage. I walked up to Kelburn Parade to meet Matt. While there were a lot of hills I kept saying to myself, ‘My Dad used to walk up here from the train station EVERY day, in bare feet in the winter when he was at Uni…..’ I somehow got up to the top bus-stop without seeing Matt, so I texted him and found out we’d missed each other. So I hid from him up some stairs (sign #1 that the vodka was taking effect). I tried bombing him with wine-gums, but they missed.

The party had lots of cool young folk at it. I was shy. I probably hung off Matt like some clingy girl. But as I got more vodka-affected I made my own fun. I have visions of dancing with Matt to various music (now, I am fully aware that I’m a horrible dancer….. so that image worries me, especially considering that for most of that we were the only ones dancing, yet there were other people in the room….).

I drunk a whole hip-flask of vodka! Now, while I never get ‘drunk’…. I do get to the stage where I like running away and hiding. That might be mildly annoying to sober boyfriends (and others). Matt found me hiding up in the attic spare-bedroom and said, ‘Kate, time to go home’ (I think he had to come up and say it three times before I obliged and climbed down the ladder, which my sensible side was putting off due to the difficulty of the task). I then grabbed my stuff (even in vodka-induced states I never lose stuff, it’s a skill) and ran out of the side door. I got clear to the bottom the Hunter Building driveway before I stopped and looked behind. Matt wasn’t in sight.

I hid down a side alley, but he was too clever and found me. I ran away again, up and down the side-path to Salamanca Rd…. but he eventually texted me saying ‘Kate, stop hiding’ so I had to find him.

Ahhh, takes me back to my younger days! But at least I didn’t fall asleep at this party. That was my #1 aim for the night. I perhaps need to reprioritise my aims for the next party (if there IS a next party). I am perhaps now known as 'Matt's girlfriend who falls asleep at parties, doesn't say much and gets fairly drunk'. The only consolation would be if they put 'but she's hot and wears cool t-shirts' in there somewhere as well......