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ooh, 4 pm. i think that's a wonderful time to start a day, don't you agree?

do i even dare recount my adventures of last night?

i must preface with these statements:
- i have/had recently vowed, once again, to change my drinking habits. meaning, NOT 8 glasses of alcohol a day, 8 glasses of WATER. well, it's more complex than that, but the "realization" (can you have a realization more than once? the same one, that is? is an epiphany repeatable?) that i was doing my body in with my cognitive-behavioural deficiencies when it comes to learning "drinking alcohol = throwing up". #1 on list - LEARN THIS LESSON. TATTOO ONTO BRAIN.
- i have also recently vowed to quit smoking. it is wrong and dirty and expensive and no sir, i don't like it. in doing so, i was going to force m roommates, i-boy and my bruvva, to also quit/cut down. i would be doing not only a service for myself, but the rest of the world, too.

on with the story...
e. (i shall call her "Dirty" from hereon in) had bought me a ticket for a show, and alt-country type woman whose music i had not heard, and we were going to have a nice, normal evening out. she left my apartment to go to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine (the thought of drinking made me balk at this point, but i figured i wouldn't drink too much wine as i don't enjoy drinking copious amounts of it, anyway), and hadn't returned. i called, and she said she had met some french boys and was smoking a joint with them. would i like to join? well, i thought that supplanting the drunkenness with stonedness would work just fine. i went.

however, i made her promise me "no french tonight" as whenever i go out with Dirty, i'm left standing while she chirps away in quebecois with some random frenchie she's found in this terribly anglo city.

met les boys. it was around 8.30. they wanted to go for a drink, and i was keen to have ONE BEER, paid for by un boy. we went to the tavern.

one boy and i entered the tavern to find a parade of people, in a sort of conga-less conga line, brandishing bejewelled umbrellas and horn instruments. it was like the saints go marching in with coronation street characters on crack. that's EXACTLY what it was like, to me, in fact.

les boys ordered pitchers. we drank beer and it went down all too well in my cottoned mouth.

then shots. first, un boy orders an "uppercut" which is a shot of peach schnapps dropped into a glass of oj. after we downed the sickly sweet combo, he said it was wrong and horrible, and didn't really taste like that. number two, Dirty's call - a broken down golf cart. however, they came to the table yellow. i believe there are two versions and we were expecting the cranberry, or PINK, version. also horrible. third time's lucky, so i instruct the bartender to make a blue kamikaze but i am used to it being a lighter tasting shot with more lemon juice, and no lime. he used more blue curacao than vodka and it ended up being a little "thicker" than i have enjoyed. but no-one complained afterwards, so i suppose it won.

we sat outside and finished off the beer, smoked cigarettes (bad, bad me! slap on wrist!) and another joint. les boys decided to join us at the show's venue, where they could stay in the bar. the cab ride was more hilarity, with me on Dirty's lap and lying on one of les boy's laps so the cops would not stop us. we drunkenly sang along to "whole lotta love" and "loser". how appro.

we went to the rooftop bar and i lay back on a padded bench and laughed at the stars. i couldn't believe someone as unhip and fucked up as myself was infiltrating this Grand Location of Hipness. Dirty demanded i stop flirting with les boys (though i was actually so inebriated that i *did not* think i was in love with any of them - perhaps because i haven't shaved my legs for 3 weeks and didn't want to risk being 'found out') and we went downstairs for the show. i leaned against a wall and sucked down a pint of ice water, listening to the dull opener. i went to the bathroom and dizzily rested against the stall. kept myself awake by imagining myself being found, hours later, asleep on the toilet, in this hip hotel.

told Dirty that i needed to leave. that i was too fucked up, and was done. she protested. i insisted. she negotiated. i refused. i left the lobby and went around the corner to expell my insides. Dirty came out and rubbed my back, and i felt no shame, not even regret at that point. i turned another corner and rid myself of more poison. though "technically" feeling better, i was still dizzy as shit and knew i needed to get horizontal in a safe environment or else it would be on the sidewalk. Dirty gave me her keys, and i took one of those cab rides home that feel like you're floating through space and time - i can't watch the street go by, but i know i can't fall asleep. i stumbled to her door, my first visit to her new abode. i pass the chasm of key confusion and throw up some more in her toilet. and i lie down (on my old bedframe) and get up again and throw up even more.

i'm always so proud of myself when i purge; it's probably the ingrained encouragement i got as a child being sick - "good girl, that's the way, get it all out....good job...." too bad there is no Master's degree in puking; i'm so successful at it, and have obviously been trained for it since childhood.

i flopped on the bed, looked at the clock, and saw that it was only 11.30 pm.

Dirty came home an hour later and fried me some chicken. this morning at brunch she exclaimed that i was becoming quite the carnivore when i ordered corned beef hash with my eggs, and i forgot that i had eaten more meat in her company in the past 10 hours than i had in many many many months.

do i dare say again, no more drinking, no more smoking, no more french?

heck, i had a bad day yesterday. it was bound to happen by midnight.