2002-10-12 - 9:43 p.m.

After last night my liver has a warrant out for my arrest.

I can't believe how much I drank, and that I kept it all down. I've been less fortunate after drinking much less, and when you consider all the mixing of drinks that went on I'm quite amazed.

My night started with happy hour (which is- very considerately- in fact an hour and a half) at a popular Newtown cocktail bar. You get two of whatever you order, but the general consensus is to swap with a friend. Going out for cocktails is a dangerous game, they say don't mix drinks but that's the whole idea of cocktails isn't it?

So I was there with Annie, Jane and Rick- a friend of Annie's from her Uni days. He was amusing, and hearing him and Annie laughing about Uni was fun, it's a part of Annie's life that I don't know much about. In under 90 minutes I had a Kamikaze (well, that seemed to be the way the night was heading), a Red Corvette, Fuzzy Berries (avoid this one, it just tastes like cordial), Mango Daquiri and an Illusion. I think that was all.

There is an article in today's Sydney Morning Herald about a drink called absinth- apparently it is quite well known and infamous but I hadn't heard of it until recently. There were references to it in "Moulin Rouge", with Kylie Minogue appearing as a "Green Absinth Fairy", and apparently it has been banned in most of the world since prohibition because it has hallucinogenic properties and can contain up to 80% alcohol. It's only recently been made legal in Australia, and is only available in a few places. When I (along with my three partners in crime) had a double dose of it last night I had no idea it was so notorious, I just thought it was like a similary high alcohol content drink I had last year- Chatreuse.

Ouch.

It tasted like White Sambucca diluted with methylated spirits, and for a while I thought I'd probably had enough to drink for the night :) Can't say I had any hallucinations though.

So anyway, we stumbled back to Annie's house, Rick departed, and we ordered Pizza. While we waited for it to arrive I ducked down to the pub and bought a reasonable bottle of red. I probably drank about half of it.

Meanwhile, Annie and Jane were sharing a joint. I don't dabble in illicit substances myself- relative sobriety is a nasty habit I picked up at an early age- but at that point I probably would have had a drag if I was offered- thank Christ I wasn't or my night and my dinner might have ended in the gutter before long.

Midnight found us at Club 77 in the Cross, which on Friday nights after whatever gig happens to be on becomes a really cool alternative nightclub that plays the likes of The Smiths, New Order, The Femmes, The Pixies- you get the picture. I would have gone through about three bottles of Crown Lager in my time there, so I certainly gave the beer, wine and spirits all a good workout. It was my first time there but it won't be my last, I really liked it. I think Annie was exhausted by a mixture of a stressful week at work, illness, medication, alcohol and pot so she left pretty soon after we got there.

I don't really know Jane *that* well, with the exception that together we've helped Annie through some tough times, and that I went to a party of hers last October before her and Annie were that close and we ended up getting *ahem* rather intimate.

Needless to say that the copious volumes of alcohol, lack of any other people we knew and (at least on my part) almost three months of sexual frustration were leading towards an inevitable conclusion. I've wondered about such a recurrence previously- in that I just find it amusing that we slept together months before we became friends, and before her and Annie were close- and wondered if it would work now. I mean for starters there's the fact that Annie and I are so close and it's blatantly obvious to all and sundry that I am in love with her, would that be a little weird for Jane?

Such things are not thought about when it's a miracle that you haven't passed out let alone have the ability to partake in such activities. So we did. And we're fine. And Annie's fine with it- I caught up with her this afternoon, both of us were in the same clothes as we had been the night before and I hadn't been home yet. She was having coffee/ late lunch with her Mum when I rang her to see if she was around, and I was invited to crash their party. I love the relationship she has with her mother- it's like she's just another of her best friends, and I think that's kind of how Jane and I and all her other friends that have met her view her. So after coffee, and in desperate need of a toothbrush and a Panadol, I bid farewell to Annie with a big hug and her mother gave her a lift to Jane's where perhaps she was filled in on things in greater detail or perhaps they said nothing of it.

Here's something I find wryly amusing, and I'm warning you now you may think it's too much information. In the alcoholic haze that is 3.30am on a Saturday morning there really isn't much thinking involved in going from two fully clothed people in a nightclub in Kings Cross to being in a bedroom on the other side of the city. It just happens. But in the light of the next morning, while you might think that it's not difficult for two naked people lying next to each other to work out what to do next, things seem a lot more awkward and complicated. What's the protocol for the morning after a drunken fling? Is a repeat performance on the cards and how do you find out if it is? I guess you just have to roll the dice and see what happens.

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