2007-03-21 - 12:20 p.m.

So the last time I wrote about what I was doing was about 2 weeks ago. I was about to head down the road to break my alcohol-free drought. So i had a couple of drinks with Kellee, made some dinner and had some wine, then went up to the Townie for Trivia and a few more drinks. After winning trivia with more or less the same group of people last time, we went pretty atrociously. I still won one of those first-in-instant-win questions, for 4 middies and a novelty prize. Last time it was for David Bowie lyrics, this time it was a Split Enz who am I.

The next day (my third day off) I did the grocery shopping, and cooked a pork leg for myself, Steve and Nathan, but I can't say I was overly impressed with the end result. I may have also gone for a run by myself. The it was back to work, but I kept myself reasonably busy in between morning shifts. After my first morning I went for a run with Steve, then went up the road to an Indian Restaurant in Dulwich Hill with Steve and Nathan for dinner. That was pretty much because Steve was moving back home to the Shire, but more on that later. After my second morning shift I went to Erin's housewarming party, complete with a big cardboard "BANG!" pinned to my t-shirt to fit the theme of "Great Moments in History". I'd arranged to come into work an hour late the next day, after staying back one of the previous days, and had about 5 beers but didn't feel too tired or seedy the next day. A bit, I'm sure, but not much. Sundays at work are always a bit of a blessing in disguise anyway- nobody really wants to be at work on 6am on Sunday, but it's usually a pretty laid back day at work.

After work I drove to Petersham where they were having their annual Portugese Food and Wine fair. It was a ridiculously hot afternoon, and I had a mixed grill plate and one Sangria before driving Nathan, Cameron and Bec back to the Exchange (that being the pub down the road) so I could have a few more drinks. There was no way I could have responsibily driven from Petersham to Marrickville after mo than one drink given the heat, and my lack of sleep from the night before. We had more beers than initially planned at the Exchange, but I'd taken food out of the freezer to defrost that morning, so I ended up drunk by myself at home cooking dinner at 9.30pm on a Sunday. Classy.

My 3 afternoons (12-14/3) were pretty uneventful, but I did get up at a decent hour on at least two of them, and even went for a run before one of them. Nothing else stands out.

I've made a bit of a habit of catching up with Kellee for a beer on my first day off- it being her first morning. It's hard having a friend- a local no less who could otherwise be a partner in crime- on a different shift to you at work. It virtually rules out any big nights out- unless I was doing something on my changeover day and she met me after midnight (I did that with Nathan a few times early last year when we were on different shifts)- but I can do dinner or drinks when I'm on days off and she's on mornings, or lunch when I'm on afternoons and she's on days off. So unlike the last time, when she was going to have a quiet one before going to the gym and I convinced her to keep drinking instead, we stuck to a two beer limit. I'd been for a short and uninspired run beforehand- it was too hot for a longer one- but it made the beer all the better. After Kellee left I bought some extra groceries I needed to go with whatever I was having for dinner and hired out a bunch of DVDs. The offer was 1 New Release and 5 Weeklies for $10, so I hired "Little Miss Sunshine", "The Motorcycle Diaries", "Heavenly Creatures", "My Own Private Idaho" and 2 more "House" DVDs. Nathan came around armed with beers for dinner and we watched "Little Miss Sunshine".

On Friday (16/3) Jo woke me up with a phone call to excitedly tell me about her payrise. She already knew she was getting 140% of her allocated bonus, which put her at the top of the people that reported to her boss, but this was icing on the cake. Why can't there be a job that good for her over here? Or one that good for me over there?? Instead we're both being very well rewarded in our respective jobs, and one of us is going to make a sacrifice, and in the meantime we're both having to make the sacrifice of not living in the same country. Anyway, I was glad to be up before 9am- made me feel like I got a lot more out of my day (and I'm keen to do that more often). But I did have a brief lie down at about 5pm. Also did the groceries, cleaned the house a bit (and the previous day I paid my bills for the month and given the circumstances I'm pretty happy with how I'm coping financially). That night I had dinner with Lucy at Rosalina's in Newtown. Plenty of charm (when I asked if they had their own wine or if it was only BYO the guy said "I think Dad's got some wine- do you want red or white?") and while the food wasn't spectacular it certainly wasn't disappointing either. I told Lucy that my spare room was pretty much vacant again, and with very little prodding she's talked herself into it surprisingly quickly (not saying that's a bad thing Lucy). But as I said before, I'll leave my living arrangements for another entry. We met up with Mark and Phoebe at the Townie for a couple of hours, and I ended up a little drunk but washome by about 2am.

I had this whole plan to have a big Irish breakfast and lots of Guinness in the afternoon on St Patrick's Day, but in the end I settled for a diluted version of that. I slept most of the morning, got up, made my big breakfast (eggs, bacon, tomato, black pudding, toast and OJ) and then pretty much went back to bed for a couple of hours. I got up, watched "The Motorcycle Diaries", and did very little else until I went to the Exchange with Nathan for the customary Guinness. I thought they had a tap, but it came from a can and they had a dedicated machine to give it a Guinness-like head after it was poured into a glass. That was the diluted version- it tasted like crap (and no I don't think Guinness normally tastes like crap). Made a quick dinner at home, had a few glasses of wine and watched "Heavenly Creatures", which was a lot more- slapstick- than I expected. Jo loves it, but I felt there wasn't enough character development, which I thought it needed to get to the point in a relationship where two very intense friends choose murder over separation.

Anyway, that was my last full cycle at work- I'm halfway through the next one but I'll leave that for another entry.

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