2007-08-26 - 8:37 p.m.

Sheesh, my last cycle felt like a long one. Okay, so I did work for one extra day in it, but still.

Friday (17/8) should have been my last day off but it was my swap for when Val worked for me for Live Earth. Lucky I was there because in addition to one of their team members being on holidays and another having a course for half the shift, the supervisor called in sick. In some ways that was better for me than having to work on the floor with someone else as a supervisor. I'm not above it, I just prefer the supervising bit. Friday night I did nothing and was probably in bed by 9pm- there was the option of going to a gig with Lucy but I'm kind of liking this getting a decent amount of sleep before 4.30am thing.

Saturday was work with my shift as per usual, and then afterwards I dropped by Kim and Marty's place (which is now in South Hurstville- I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that at some point) for some canapes, catch-up and a bit of 500 for good measure. I had to leave a little after 6pm so I could go home and then head out to Claire's birthday dinner at the Peasant's Feast. Jo and I went there on Jo's birthday one year (at the time I was annoyed with myself for not finding somewhere that screamed "Jo" in time, but even putting that aside it was underwhelming. I pretty much felt the same about the food this time around, but there were a heap of people at the table and I had more wine than I was initially planning for a night in between two morning shifts so it was still a fun night. I got home a little after midnight.

Sunday both at work and home was pretty uneventful. I think the only thing worth noting was that I organised flowers (and a teddy bear :) for Jo's birthday to be sent to her work. I think that was Sunday anyways. Then Monday was the dreaded fourth morning at work, but I had a training course for most of it, so it took some of the edge off. Monday night I probably felt like a few drinks for a changeover night, but lets face it- it's not easy finding drinking buddies on a Monday night. I had a couple of glasses of wine, watched some TV and was in bed before midnight.

Tuesday and Wednesday were both hectic days at work which saw me there until after midnight- in the case of Tuesday night we're talking about 1.45am. I found time during the day on Tuesday to write in my pen-and-paper diary, but clearly on Wednesday before work I just wanted to catch up on sleep. And then on Thursday I went into work at midday, and left at about 8.30pm, which gave me a much deserved extra little bit added onto my days off. I went by Video Ezy and got out "Pan's Labyrinth", "Shortbus" and "The Black Dahlia". I watched "Pan's Labyrinth" that night and the other two last night. I'd heard "Shortbus" was very sexually explicit, but even that didn't prepare me for the opening few scenes. Not that that sort of thing bothers me at all, but it made it a little bit wierd watching it with Nathan and Lucy. I still think it was an interesting movie though- and it wasn't just a porno with a plot. "The Black Dahlia"- I probably wouldn't be as harsh on it as most critics have been, but having read the book I thought it was very scant on details (but then it's intention was more to be all arty and "film noir" as they say) and character development. "Pan's Labyrinth" was good- in terms of the two "sides" of the movie- harsh wartime reality and childish fantasy world- it leaned much more towards the former than I expected, and if you want an uplifting ending- forget about it.

So on Friday I slept in until about 1pm (although I certainly didn't have good reason to, what with finishing work early and probably being in bed by midnight), then called Jo and talked to her for about an hour, so that's where most of my day went. After talking to Jo I went down the road to get some Pho, and by the time that was all said, done and eaten it was about 4pm. My plans for the night involved going out and getting drunk with Lucy at the bare minimum, and at some stage I decided we should kick it off with homemade mojitos, so I went back to the shops to buy lime, mint and mixer (I used lemonade to eliminate the need for sugar, but I think soda water works better), and also got some Coronas. Nathan bought into the night out plans, and he came around after work. I'd learned from experience that a night out in which I get Lucy trashed shouldn't start too early, or there was the risk of it ending (for her anyway) before midnight, so I partially took that into consideration. One could argue that drinking mojitos still constitutes starting the night- in fact, many would, so I'm not going to end that sentence with any sort of defence.

The three of us caught the bus up to Newtown and went to old favourite (particularly for Lucy) Newton's Cocina, where we added a tequila shot (in the form of a "Mexican Flag"- a shot of lime juice, a shot of tequila and a shot of sangrita) and some Sangria to our drinks arsenal, but it needs to be said that Lucy was already making amusing drunken comments on the bus :) We moved onto the Sando for a drink or two, before getting to the Townie at exactly the same time as Mark and Phoebe, who I'd invited along but wasn't expecting to be honest. And the stage was set for a fun night out with friends. Even with my careful consideration Lucy peaked too early, but to her credit managed to kick on for a good few hours after she first thought she needed to call it a night. And after some time declining alcoholic beverages she was drawn back in when we decided we were going to start tasting JD, Beam and Johnny Walker and cokes to see if we could pick them apart. I bonded with a couple of strangers over the Finn Brothers (basically admitting to eavesdropping on the conversation they were having about said musicians and then joining it), and eventually Phoebe, then Lucy and Nathan (who was crashing on my couch), and finally Mark went home, and I decided to kick on myself at the Judgement Bar.

When you get home at 8am, even when there are no drugs (other than alcohol) involved, there's still a comedown that afternoon- generally due to tiredness, and while I was wasting away the afternoon feeling a little melancholy I questioned the wisdom on several occasions of kicking on. But really, why not? I did enjoy myself, even when talking to strangers at the Judgement Bar, and I had set aside the whole Saturday to get over Friday night, so really the only thing I was questioning was whether it said something scary about me that I wanted to keep going even when all my friends had gone. It's not the done thing, but that doesn't mean it's not the right thing for me at the time. I'm so less overanalytical than I used to be, but I just thought I'd mention that those thoughts were swirling through my mind.

So back to the Judgement Bar- I chatted to a few interesting people, and a few tools, and had a very amusing encounter in the bathroom, which is ridiculously crossing the "too much information" line but you're all going to have to deal with it. All the ex-Whitlams geeks that read this are aware of the snippet of conversation between Messrs Freedman and Hall on the Eternal Nightcap secret track regarding urinal ettiquite, which states that you can't talk to a guy on the urinal because you don't know where to look. To which Tim Hall retorts "You look at their cock! It's an invitation!"

Well my urinal encounter went something like this.

Strange late-thirties man: "Nice cock" (and not in a sarcastic "I'm trying to shock" kind of way either).

Me: "Um, thanks. If I weren't straight and taken that might have got you somewhere."

Strange man: "Oh, are you straight? Because I'd suck that cock."

Me (now I'm paraphrasing my drunken recollection): "Again, if I wasn't straight and taken, that comment might have got you somewhere (seductive wink implied in tone but not actually performed".

I think I wanted to assure him that even though it hadn't worked for him, I thought that said approach to picking up guys was so bold it needed to be commended. It could have worked- it also could have got him beaten up, but then again, it was Oxford Street.

Generally people who are still upstairs at the Judgement Bar when everything else is closed are pretty fun and interesting, but the people remaining downstairs when the upstairs bit closes are just sad and desperate. So that was kind of my cue to leave, after one more drink anyway. I think I was home just before 8am, and then gave Jo a drunken phone call at her work. I got up at about midday (*Warning- Blatant Baiting in Progress*) disgusted that despite my best efforts no shagging had taken place in my absence- at least that I am aware of ;)

So then Lucy, Nathan and I went down the road to get some Vietnamese for lunch, before I settled on the couch to watch a heap of Seinfeld Episodes (I bought Seasons 4 and 6 on DVD from Video Ezy when I returned "Pan's Labyrinth"), followed by the two movies I mentioned earlier.

This morning the same three suspects as well as my friend Cristan from Uni went to Yum Cha (Nathan did go home last night), and then a little later on we (just me and Nathan) went for a walk and run for the first time in eons. Nathan's hoping that his lapse back into Smoking has stopped as of last night (when he decided not to buy a new packet), and hopefully getting back into the running will be a helpful motivator. For me it negated any feelings of having completely wasted the previous day, particularly when I followed it up with doing some grocery shopping, cooking dinner for Lucy and I and writing in here. And that's where I'm up to now.

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