Quickly Does It

Favourite Cafe at the moment - Eva Dixon's in Miramar (lovely service, lots of seating options, never too crowded, delicious and ever-changing variety of sweet things in the cabinet). Hard to find, but worth the journey. May I recommend the pumpkin, cream cheese and chocolate muffins.

Favourite Bargain - $12 book shelf from The Warehouse (available in red, white, green and fake-wood). Just the right height to go under a window and cheap enough that you can get a few and put them together to make one big bookcase with lots of compartments with many arrangement options. I would recommend them if you need any storage solutions for your flat/house or have a gap you want to make more homely. I got bright red ones.

Favourite EnglishGuy2 anecdote - after his drunken mishaps on Saturday, he was still keen enough to drink last night and somehow managed to fall into the bath (not even climbing through the window) and give himself a black eye. He said he seriously considered sleeping there all night instead of bothering trying to get himself back out. He cracks me up! He has a wonderfully dry and self-depricating humour. I will miss him!

Favourite Excuse for Standing me up on Friday Night - 'I was in hospital with alcohol poisoning' (that put me off in so many ways - I will stick with my original 'to the left' verdict and move on)

Favourite Drink - I got a coffee from Lido and it was delicious. I don't usually notice how good coffee is. I tried to order a 'cafe bon bon' which is espresson with condensed milk, but I'm fairly sure they just gave me a latte. Either way, it was yum. I can see why people become coffee afficianados now.



PS - my severely deeply internally bruise ribs still hurt. I had to try to avoid puffing at netball tonight 'cause it flared up again. I woulda thought that would be easy for me, given how lazy I can be, but I actually had to make quite a concerted effort! It hurt to make sudden movements and reach out too far with my left arm so I had to grimace every time someone passed me the ball and expected me to move.

I thought it was heaps better, but I think I may have just altered my breathing style sub-consciously to shallow breathing (which isn't good for you and you can get lung infections from it, woopsie).

I still suspect a mis-diagnosis. They're broken, damnit! I want a second opinion. I would go to that doctor on the Simpon's (the crack-pot one) - he'd say it was so bad they had to operate immediately. He would validate my pain!!!

Something to consider....

Instead of just taking meat to a BBQ (and let's face it - there's always too much meat somehow) take a tin of baby beetroot. I love beetroot. And baby ones are adorable. Drain the tin and put them in a cute bowl - and voila, a healthy side option to go with the plate of meat. Don't know why I hadn't thought of it before.

Sweating like a pig....

It was a very hot and muggy night last night. It was even hotter in the middle of the dance floor at Kitty O'shea's. But every song the band played was better than the last, so there was no chance for a break. Best song: Blister in the Sun. Good times! Me and Cassie reminisced about hilarious things. I almost got her doing the 'woo woo' belly laugh.

Angst....

Me and Ange had the traditional 'debriefing brunch' today at the Maranui Surfclub Cafe and filled each other in on the night's gossip. We are both feeling boy-angst about certain unpredictable possibilities we have. Very different kinds of angst - but very relatable. Takes your mind off other things anyhow. I am sleeping better than I have been for a while.

Where's Katie?...

I am loving my Where's Wally? top. Makes me very easy to spot in a crowd.

Shoes...

I have another pair of new shoes. These ones are great. They are possibly even a tiny bit too big, which is a rarity. I had to put inner-soles in to make them snugger. The issue with these ones is they gave me about five blisters per foot. Gotta push past that pain barrier though..... They go 'click-clack' when I walk.

SUDOKU

I am becoming a Sudoku machine. I have starting working through my giant book of them bought cheaply in a Boxing Day sale.

I have several effective tactics.

I timed myself to make it more fun (there are recommended times).

I think someone should start a competitive Sudoku league. Hand everyone the same puzzles, make it a race..... FUN!

My dad likes them too. We have similar minds. I annoy him by standing over his shoulder and giving him advice. He goes to the extreme of actually setting them up as spreadsheets on Exel. He uses Exel a lot in his job. He is my ubergeekdad!

* * *

On a less intellectual level, I bought a pretty dress that I had no reason to buy. I enjoy watching it hanging in my room - even if it is of no practical use.

Dresses are my weakness. They are something I buy on impulse even if I know deep down I'll end up wearing them three times (that's $30-$50 a wear - not efficient shopping!).

What are other people's shopping weaknesses??? What do you buy on a whim that you don't need?

Note: Yes, that is a slightly posey photo. I'm using the well-developed technique of setting the digital camera on timer to see what an outfit really looks like. It's much less biased than the mirror. I also took the unforgiving 'front-on' shot. Never good. Taking small videos is even better. I'm not the only person who does this - Ange takes ass-shots on her phone to see what her pants look like :)

My Saturday Night

I was explaining to someone what my plans were for last night.... and I had to warn them that I was having a geek night.

1) We played RISK
2) It was special edition Star Wars (TM) RISK
3) It was in the Hutt
4) I was drinking ginger beer and lemonade

But I don't care - it was ubergeekfun!

Game One

I was positioned very well in this game. I secured my continent early on and won lots of troops. Me and Sam seemed to form an unofficial peace-zone on our part of the board, so I was free to expand and build up forces. I was the early favourite to win.

I patiently waited until my force was mammoth enough to try to achieve my goal (not wanting to attempt it too early and give it away).... so I went for it in one turn. And I came THIS close. I only had three of Richard's soldiers to defeat and I would have won the game..... But the pesky little beggers just wouldn't die. And I ran out of enforcements.

I left it until next turn.... But then Sam's Black Plague swept across the board and took advantage of my thinned out army to win the game.

Richard was again, a b******.

Game Two

I was exhausted from my mammoth and heart-breaking effort in Game One, so didn't really put my heart into this one. Plus my troops were placed stupidly. Sam decimated one half of my army on about the second turn and then Richard swooped at me from both sides (it was his mission to kill me).

I had more fun playing with my spare army-men and making little prisons with them for the pieces I managed to eject from the board. They were my POWs.

So again, that b******* Richard thwarted my efforts. One day I will get him. He will rue the day he stopped me from winning. I will read up on my army tactics and next time I'll be more prepared. I'll have my troops in tip-top shape. I'm gonna practise my dice-rolling maneuvers for hours a day. And I'm going to audition my plastic-men to see who's most likely to have me roll sixes for them, and they will be part of my Special Lucky Forces, and they will have the honour of being on the Front Line when I attack Richard bin Laden. I will condition them to hate him via Clockwork Orange tactics (taping their eyelids open and doing mean stuff involving pictures of Richard).

Richard, you have been warned.

I am Martha Stewart

I sewed. All by myself. Apart from Lynne telling me how to sew and Fish showing me how to use the machine (except how to put the foot down).

I sewed in straightish lines and made cushions. I like them.

I noticed one of my flatmates made a stack of three of them to lean up against while watching TV. They are useful.

Hmm.... what shall my next craft project be............ I might just keep making cushions. That's what I did at sewing classes at Intermediate. I made lots of tiny (useless) cushions. My brother enjoyed throwing them up and trying to get them to go between the rafter and the ceiling in our lounge.

Mr Green Toyota Corolla - you suck!

I have never tooted my horn at anyone (except one time someone cut in front of me at the supermarket and Cassie was in the passenger seat and reached across and did it for me.... I was mortified and said, 'Cass - I don't toot!'). But I understood the mentally of getting road rage after a tiny incident on my beloved State Highway 1.

* * *
I had purposely waited until Monday afternoon to drive home, thinking the weekend traffic might have thinned out with people returning to the first day back at work. It hadn't really.

The whole way my little Silver Mazda Familia was part of a long snake of traffic, moving at a frustrating 90ks with no real sign of break-away chances in sight. I didn't bother trying to overtake anyone until I got past Paraparaumu. There was a camper-van in front of me most of the early part of the journey, but to its credit it wasn't holding anything up.

This is when I got angry whilst driving home from LVN. I had just been through both sets of lights in Waikanae and was at the point where the two lanes merge back into one. I was letting a second camper-van from the other lane go in front of me (as you do - one from each lane, having turns), and was leaving a little room for it, but obviously not enough for two cars to jump in front of me.... (on a day of slow traffic why would I want to do that?).

I was already resenting all the traffic that had gone in the right-hand-lane - it looked like all the impatient drivers and they were just trying to sneak a few places in front of me.

When the car behind the camper-van accelerated and decided to push in.... at which point I accelerated too, thinking 'Oh no you don't, cheeky bugger!'... at which point he accelerated more. I had to let him go in front or crash into him.

I said many expletives very loudly and gave the back of his car the evils for a long time. It went something like this, 'Merge like a zip, you stupid f*****!' Even one of my struggling sixth form students in English had understood the concept (and had the nouse to point out it is a simile).

I caught up with him at the Paraparaumu lights (fat lot of good his pushy driving had done for him!). I peered across to see who this inconsiderate b******* was. It was a normal looking man in his 40s, with what looked like two young daughters in the car.

It irks me that a normal looking person made me angry while driving. He ruined the mood of my Paul Simon Anthology CD. I see driving on the highway in times of thick traffic as a kind of team sport - like that road racing they do on bicycles. If you are the lead car you should do your job of keeping a good pace, and then drop off if someone else could do it better or you're holding up the team..... I like the comradery of it. We should all be resigned to being in it together. It's not any one car's fault that we're not doing 100ks. So passing any one car isn't going to achieve much. It strikes me as arrogance. It turns the group activity into a competitive one where every car is out for themself.

Mr Green Car ruined my team spirit.

Niblingsx3

From Friday to Sunday I have been helping with the niblings (great word, F+S). There's Hannah (8), Finn (7) and Ruby (15 months).

My observations of Children
- It takes a long time to actually leave the house when there are kids involved. They don't think to put shoes on or go to the toilet (and we had an incident where as soon as we walked to a playground, we had to go straight back home for a toilet emergency - kids!).
- No matter how many shiny-noisy-sparkling toys you put in front of a baby, she will still be more interested in playing with the buckles and straps on her stroller for half an hour.
- The sound 'da-da' can mean many different things, from 'dad' to 'did it!'.
- Rough games inevitably end in tears.
- Kids assume you want to hold anything they can't be bothered with (excess sweaters, shoes, rubbish, balls).
- The Disney Channel has some quality programming! I like Hannah Montana (which, incidentally, has Billy Ray Cyrus and his real life daughter in the main roles) Something Something Raven (with the annoying little girl from the Cosby Show - Denise's step-daughter).

Things I am Enjoying at the Moment
- I have, in my slothful state, discovered the radio. I very much enjoy enacting my early afternoon rituals to the Midday Matinee on National Radio. They had a whole hour of songs about Elvis (not by him, note). Interesting!
- The fact that netball's starting back up. I need to exercise.... I played non-stop cricket with Hannah and found it hard to run around the wicket and back.....

Things I am Not Enjoying
- Wellington seems to be hogging the news headlines with horrific stories. I don't like the thought that someone was going around our neighbourhoods randomly shooting people. I don't like the thought that someone got raped in a car-park in Newtown around the corner from where I used to live. Those are the kind of things that ought to be happening in other countries.

Animal Infestation

My flat is slowly being taken over by animals of various kinds.... It's like a bad horror movie. Tonight was the night of The Maggoty Mouse Hunt

1) The Ants.
They have been coming for a few months now. I've spotted them in my food cupboard and they sent scouts upstairs to my room and seem to enjoy my leg-waxing kit (it is sweet and sticky). They are easily assailable - small and slow. I kill them one by one.

2) The Spider.
English-guy#1 woke up with an itchy spider bite on his neck one night. He thinks it jumped in through his open window.

3) The Maggots.
I was putting the rubbish out tonight and since I'd been away on rubbish day the last few weeks, we had some rather old bags nobody else had thought to put out. I peered into one and saw a festering pile of maggots. I was bemused by this. It's happened once before in our flat, months ago. Maggots are fairly harmless to me. Gross but harmless.

4) The Mouse.
We have known for about a month that there is (hopefully only one!) a mouse living in our kitchen. It seems to enjoy one of the lower shelves and our cupboard-of-rubbish-under-the-stairs. I had a face off with it once. It got away (I let it - to be honest). Tonight, whilst I was looking bemusedly at the maggots, the little blighter jumped out of the bag and damned near landed on me. It continued to skitter about all the walls of the kitchen whilst I nimbly tried to jump out of its way. I had jandals on - this made me even more nervous about vermin being around my feet. If you know my lack of grace and coordination, the image of me 'nimbly' jumping out of the way of a mouse might be comedic. Very rarely do I move quickly. We had it cornered behind the fridge briefly, then it made a dash for freedom.

Comedy ensued. The mouse raced into the lounge. My yells of surprise had alerted the English-guys to the mouse's presence. It disappeared somewhere under the couch. There was a moment of calm. I went and got my mouse-catching-container from the kitchen, someone took out the rubbish. After my first face off with the mouse, where I had been sorely lacking for catching-apparatus, I had scouted out an ideal container, just for this type of ocassion. At this point English-guy#1 noticed the maggots had leaked onto the kitchen floor and nearly fainted. That concerned him more than the mouse.

We got a pincer movement going in the lounge - all with containers and cushions in hand - and vowed to make the mouse go out the front door. At that point it lept out somewhere between my feet, making me jump and scream, and disappeared again. English-guy#2 became the mouse scout and swore it was under the far section of the couch. We pulled the other sections away to give it less exit routes. English-guy#1 lifted the couch right up.... but there was no sign of the mouse. I accused the mouse-scout of having failed at his job..... but then we heard a scratching sound. The mouse had somehow lept up into the couch (much like how people cling to the bottom of cars or roofs in houses in chase scenes of Hollywood movies - this mouse has style).... and jumped out of it. Luckily it ran right out the door for safety.

YEAH - AND DON'T COME BACK, VERMIN! I yelled after him.

All this while Canadian-flatmate had been on a phone conversation to a friend back home. The person he was calling was very amused by the commentary of maggots and mice and the yelling coming from the rest of us. I think it may have sounded like his friend was living in a hell-hole .....

Note: I was incredibly brave the whole time! I did not scream in a girly way (only in a surprised way, which is very natural) and I played a key role in the plan to force the mouse out. I did not shie away from the action. And I was the one who then cleaned up the maggots. And I can change lightbulbs. I am SUPER GIRL!

Small but Hard Steps

Nicky-with-curly-hair told me years ago, back at Teachers' College, that to have a successful modern relationship you need to have a cell-phone and email. As a person without a cell-phone I thought she was ridiculous.... but now I know better! All that romance I could have been missing out on back in the early 2000's......

Here are some extracts from a long-term social project Cassie, Ange and I have called 'A Wellington Girl's Guide to Life'.
Chapter 17: The Break-up

There are two small steps you might be working towards which are tiny actions requiring less than a flick of the wrist, but milestones in your 'getting over him' phases.

1. The Cell Phone

If a relationship ends and it is obvious that you have no context to still be friends with the guy and you come to realise he may not have treated you as well as you deserved it is often somehow still hard to delete his number from your phone. There's still that 0.01% of your otherwise logical brain that thinks there may still be an 'I miss you! I made a terrible mistake!' text coming. You want to be able to say, 'Too bad! You missed out!' and feel better.

We come up with excuses like 'But I just want it there so that if he texts me I'll know who it is....' in order to justify not deleting his number.

In very unfortunate situations we send The Drunken Text asking oh-so-casually what he's up to late on a Saturday night. We try very hard to not have typos in this so as not to make him think we have become a pathetic shell of a lush post-breakup. We regret it the next day.

Even if he replies in an oh-so-casual manner, we realise it does not fit in with our dignified approach to The Break Up. Though, we may achieve a small amount of satisfaction if he was the last to text after this encounter.

Following The Drunken Text, we may realise it really is necessary to delete him from our phone. There are two veteran tricks to cheating at this. Firstly, you can leave something from him in your inbox which you will recognise from its contents, and thus even though he is not programmed..... if you need to you can still send The Drunken Text. Secondly, you can delete him fully from your phone, but write his number down somewhere handy.... just in case.....

The most healthy phase to reach is the where you delete his number without resorting to these two cheats. If you can do this you know you're at a 'good place'. It's much like when you burn your textbooks at the end of a course, or throw a perfectly good box of chocolates into the rubbish (after getting your friends to lick them - just in case that's not enough of a deterrant) when you're really starting a diet. Small acts - but symbolic signs of strength. Finality. The end of an era. Shows of strength. I DON'T NEED YOU ANY MORE, CHOCOLATE!

Just that one press of your button when the word 'Delete?' comes up on the screen is very meaningful. You can do it so that your friends around you just think you're texting flippantly.... it need not be a dramatic or public thing. But it's very final. It also helps to avoid 'the accidental text' which lets him know he's still on your phone...... Some people I know have even sent The Fake Accidental Text, just to see if he replies....... [for the record, he did - success.]

Another milestone is deleting all texts from them that you have saved in your inbox. I have a text from my 3rd date with my latest Ex that is still sitting undeleted in my inbox. It has lasted eight months. One day I'll delete it.

2. MSN

Ange warned me about this one after her break-up last year. If you have developed an MSN rapport with your Ex during the relationship, then it becomes very awkward to still have them pop up online once you have broken up.

It reminds you that they are still going about their everyday business.... but without you knowing anything about it. I somehow quite comfortably forget that they are people too. And them popping up on my screen gives me a visual of exactly where they're sitting, in their flat at the computer desk.... and I don't like this tangible reminder. It does not fit my egocentric view of the world. In my mind they are sitting humped over a glamour-photo of me, pining or getting fat and hideous so nobody else will ever want them....
Also, every time you see that they're online and they don't message you (though you rationally don't expect them to) it's a tiny rejection. Even if you don't like them anymore it would still be a tiny vindication if they wanted to see what you were up to...... And it's so easy to sound oh-so-casual via internet messaging. 'Sup?' 'Not much - u?' 'Same'
There is at the same time, of course, a voyeuristic pleasure in being able to tell what they are doing at any given time without having to resort to a spy-camera and binoculars. And the satisfaction of knowing they haven't deleted you yet either. Any time you don't see them for a few days you start to wonder if they have.... and then they pop up again. Phew. You still have the chance to get in first.

You hope that while they're online they're not sneakily reading your blog.....

I imagine (though I've not yet actually taken this step) that when you delete them from your MSN list it is yet another satisfying milestone.

Note: For now I've not done any of these things - though I guess it has been over three weeks now. Time flies.... I expect one day I will delete him. I don't expect in the meantime to have texted or MSNed him, so I'm not quite sure why it's rational to put it off. But it is.

See Chapter 18 for 'The Functional Breakup' after which you manage to remain friends - I have many examples to prove it is not a myth.

* * *

More Randomly

1. Why do boys like sitting in the lounge in the dark? Girls like having lights on as soon as it is dusk - unless we have set up candles or it is 'mood lighting' for a movie. Boys pull the blinds in the middle of the day. I am the only girl in my flat now. It's very dark.

2. Did anyone else see the amazing moon last night? I was driving home with Julie last night and we had a series of surreal events, one of which was looking up and noticing that the moon was the lowest we had ever seen it. It was one of those moons that you could reach out and touch. And it was huge! And yellow! Like in a Smashing Pumpkins video. Wish I'd had my camera with me.

3. I have managed to thus-far maintain the magic weight-loss I had on new year's day (after my night of drunken lushness). Long may that last! If it does not magically last I may have to resort to physical exercise. Bugger that. I even put on my 3rd loosest pair of jeans (the pair that has for months been too tight to wear without feeling like a masocist)... and they fit! Hoorah!

4. I have started to find common ground with the new flatmates. Enlgish-man#2 played the guitar in a band, likes Jeff Buckley and has been to Madison Square Garden (ditto all of those things for me, except not in a band). We both have well formed views on the demise of Michael Jackson and think the printing industry seems stressful and like something we would not like to be involved in. We both want it to be summer soon.

5. Today looks a bit like summer. I will tentatively leave my room and go outside for a while. Wish me luck....

Defining You and R*I*S*K

Meeting New People

It seems very unfair in life that certain key features about us become 'defining'. They become the things that people ask us about in the beginning of a 'getting to know you' conversation. And most of these things are thrust upon us - rather than being things we choose to have as part of our identities. I met a bunch of 'new people' on New Year's Eve and was reminded of the first few stages of getting to know each other.

1. Before the conversation even begins you become identified by your physical features. You might be tall (like me) and that makes you 'Tall Kate'. People assume you are intelligent and capable and wise - most of which might be true, but it's still an assumption. You may be red-headed, in which case people will assume (perhaps correctly) that you are dramatic and exaggerate things. You may be extremely thin. You may have a fish-face. When people are talking about you, that may well become how they identify you - 'You know, Nicky with the curly hair'. It is inescapable. Unless you purposefully go out and create an even more noticeable feature. Like a mohawk or those extreme facial piercings. Or you could stoop a lot, if you don't like being tall. If you are lucky you are 'the hot guy', though we tend to attach 'arrogant player' to that..... Often rightly so.

2. Your place of origin is very important. It allows people to pigeon hole you very quickly. If, for example, you are from Levin, that says a lot about you. It says you are a very good sort and will get on with everybody famously. You don't hold pretentions and have an earthy quality about you. But you grew up close enough to Wellington to be open to liberal-thinking and able to adapt to fashion-trends. Being from The Hutt says something very different about you...... No matter how much travelling you do as a grown-up, you will always have to admit to where you hail from. Or learn to lie well. I figure you might as well be proud of it or it shows a lack of loyalty and indicates some kind of deep self-hatred..... I LOVE LEVIN!

3. Your job is another important thing. It's like in About a Boy when Will has to admit that he doesn't do anything - it road-blocks the coversation. Our jobs are natural segueways into other conversations - they indicate our level of education, our interests, the networks we have an 'in' with, who we might know by association..... And people have a natural curiosity about careers. The first time me and Nicky talked to a graphic design person we were fascinated by the fact that they could design a font based on their handwriting. And what the heck would one talk to Svend about if he didn't work for Weta? :) Sam has it hard on that front.... What with the secrecy codes and all. I just imagine him wearing white overalls and working in a bright sterile environment with lots of buttons and microscopes. I have no idea what he really does.

4. Your name is of course very important. First names mainly. I can go a long time without knowing someone's last name. Your name defines whether people will take you seriously off the bat. Some names make talking to someone much more fun - like Donald. People have past associations with names. Everyone I went to school with named 'Simon' was very geeky and into remote controlled cars. Svend is a cool name. I am mostly friends with Svend just because I like saying his name. Svend. It's pleasing. And almost every Sam I've ever known has been a good sort. It's a name I would consider giving to a son.

5. Your relationship status. There are a small core of us who are 'single'. I think it projects us differently to those who are 'married' or 'engaged'. I like to think it gives us a devil-may-care, rougeish appearance. I may be wrong..... In the 19th Century I would officially be the 'spinster Aunt' by now. Whereas now I'm the 'cool fun independant Aunt' (umm..... that's how I like to put it anyhow!). I think we 'singles' also have a predatory image to us. We try to move in packs. Relationship status is hard to bring up immediately without seeming nosy or a little too interested. It must be done discretely or by being very observant. Being 'newly single' is a slightly different category too.

6. Age is important. We look down on younger people because we've been there, done that. We can look at them partying and having their fun and say 'Ahhh, I remember what that was like - don't wanna go back though' (sometimes). I am very surprised if someone in their early 20s has the cynicism to kick it with my group of friends.


There's other stuff. But I've finished my rant. Those are the ones that came to mind first. I feel like one of those kids who ends an essay suddenly, without a conclusion.... Not sure where I was going with that.

* * *

I played Star Wars Risk today with the Kelson Crew. Intense. I can see how real war strategising would be quite fun. I liked sacrificing my men on the front line in brave battles when they were outnumbered, as long as they managed to take a couple of the enemy troops out with them.

The game moved in many waves of power.

1.
I looked good in the first round, and was fairly screwed after that (thanks mostly to that b******* Richard who kept thwarting my attempts to gain power with lucky rolling and managed to maintain just the tiniest of toe-holds in my planet). Due to being last at picking countries I'd made the rookie mistake of trying to hold the biggest planet. The Black Army was powerful - but had too many borders and pesky enemies to manage it.
2.
I turned briefly to just trying to kill Sam's Red Plague of troops for the hell of it and bugger winning. But then he became moderately powerful so I had to back off into obscurity. So I teamed up with Richard's Yellow Brigade and tried to contain the mighty blue wave that was Kirsten-and-Fish.
3.
I figured if I couldn't win... then nobody should, damnit! The game should go on foreeeever! And it did. Until we all decided to declare peace and go and have a spa instead. Ahem. I may have controlled the most territories at that point (mostly with just one man on them.... and easily assailable.... but for the record, it WAS the MOST).

It was amusing how Sam managed to earnestly blame his lack of skill at rolling sixes for his early demise...... I'm sure he'll go home and practise and come back as an expert roller next time :)

In addition....

I have just had the post-mortem with Ange. Apparently I was not alone in thinking I was very drunk last night. Most times I'm very drunk I think I manage to maintain a certain level of decorum, and even if other people say I was mildly obnoxious, I manage to steadfastly refuse to listen to them. I have solid (potentially bordering on delusional) self-belief in my a ability to hold my liquor.

But this time..... I may have been embarrassingly drunk for almost the first time ever! Ange was telling me things I said/did and I was saying, 'No! I wouldn't do that.... You're making it up!' But she swears it's true - and I have snippets of memories that back that up.

The worst thing was that at one stage I was rating everyone in the group out of ten. To their faces. Harshly! I told one guy he was 'A six - wait, maybe a four'. I'm sure there was a context, or I was kidding .... or something. I was a bit mortified on hearing that! Oopsy.

And Ange had secretly mustered a bunch of guys to 'look after' me all night, because I was the burdensome drunk girl in the group. Oopsy. All night I just thought I was really popular and charming because people kept hanging out with me..... I didn't realise that's why it was happening....

All I can say is those must've been some damned powerful Red Bull and vodkas I started on! Ange says I was a 'weird kind of drunk' - I wasn't making sense at all.

In an attempt to make me stop cringing Ange found one bright spot. I didn't send any embarrassing texts. I didn't even think of it, to tell you the truth. That is most excellent. And potential-rebound-guy texted me happy new years, and all I said in return was 'You too'. I think that's all I could manage to spell at that point. Good thing.

* * *

Oh, and I didn't vomit or fall over! So how bad could it really have been??? And I didn't get alcohol poisoning on New Years.... Only a real amateur would do that [ahem, Cassie].

* * *

Another post-script - I texted my random texter 'Suhail' back and asked if he/she was the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. They didn't get it. Mustn't be someone I know. People I know 'get it'. Or perhaps it seemed funnier in my drunken head ........

Advice on How to Safely Remove Burnt Toast without Electrocuting Yourself.

1.

I have not had a hangover in a long time. Not like this one. And I had no Vogels in the house! Vogels and peanut butter is my best hangover cure. I made do with kumara croquettes (which I burnt in the oven quite spectacularly whilst distracted by the ballroom dancing on TV). All I could manage for the first two hours of the day were incohent mumblings (to myself - containing the words 'still drunk' and 'feel sick') while I lay in bed trying not to move and texting people telling them how bad I felt. People I barely know.

My vague memories of last night:

- I remember consciously thinking several times that it was like I was in a movie, and feeling very detached from what was going on. I also had this very certain feeling that I could do anything and that it didn't matter because it wasn't real. And I was only drinking alcohol... I think.

- I met a guy called Donald. I kept telling people Donald was my new friend. I liked Donald's name so I said it a lot.

- I think I was dancing. I remember standing in the middle of other people who were dancing, so I must have been too. I can't dance though. I wonder what I was doing.

- I saw Michelle from our indoor team. We danced. She danced, and I was standing next to her anyway. I must have danced too.

- I may have agreed to play in an indoor soccer team with Donald's short friend. I remember using my hands dramatically to emphasise how terrible I was at foot-coordination sports. I said, 'This is averagely bad. And this is me [motioning much lower down].' I wonder if he still wants me to play. I do believe he has my cell phone number. I was proud of remembering that whilst drunk.

- I remember someone else commenting on The Gollums as I used them to express something else. I may have been pointing leeringly in their face. Ange was quick to share their nickname.

- I don't believe I purchased a beverage the whole time I was out. Somebody must have been plying me with liquor though. I'm not sure who it was.

- On the bus home (Donald helpfully knew the after-dark time-table) I remember some young hooligans yelling out, 'Hi Miss J---!' from the back of the bus. I remember saying, 'I don't teach boys!' and wondering who they were and how they knew my teacher-name.

2.

Cassie has bravely asked me to be her bridesmaid again. For those of you unaware of 'The Curse', I shall explain why this is brave.

I have twice before been asked to be a bridesmaid.

Neither of the weddings eventuated. It was tragic. They'd picked out the colour of my dress and everything.

I think I may be bad wedding-luck as a bridesmaid. Asking me to be one shows how confident Cassie is of her union with Anthony. It's a good sign! She will beat the curse! I'm rooting for her. I want to wear a poofy pink satin dress.

3.

My 'v' key is a bit sticky at the moment. It's surprising how often I use that key.

4.

I just got a happy new years text from Suhail. Do I know a Suhail? I don't think I do.....

5.

Simon (ex-flatmate Simon - the one who rocks a lot, physically not metaphorically or musically) - has apparently found his mojo again. He said it was always inside him.

* * *

I may still be drunk. But spelling v[damnedstickykey]ery accurately. It's because I teach the English.