Money, Cash, Hoes

This is purely a post to gloat about the fact that I went and got my taxes done the other day, and while hoping for a return around the 5k mark, it actually came in at about $7,000. I tried to conceal my glee from the accountant who gave me this fortuitous news, however I have never come so close to dry humping someone whose name I couldn't have remembered with a gun to my head.*

It doesn't actually leave me with a ton of cash to play with, but at least it spares me the image of myself begging for spare change in the office so that I can afford lunch when I get back from my month-long vacation..

*This statement is an absolute lie.

Shut Up And Die

Okay, I think I need to make a confession. One that may make me somewhat unpopular here on the interweb. But I have to say it -- I can't stand Rihanna. That's right -- despite the fact that the entire world has been sucking at her teet for every single bit of pop crap that might dribble out, I just want to punch her in the face.

This confession was so much harder to publish after being intimidated a few weeks back by Cristin's "Ode To Rihanna", as I like to call it. That is easily one of my least favorite Rihanna songs (I have tried several times to listen to it the whole way through and simply can't do it) and yet there it is, at the top of the charts, along with everything else she even farts on.

I even had so much trouble attempting to find a truly bad picture of this girl that I had to settle for a doctored one that mocks a facial flaw so obvious (her "fivehead") that it seems pointless to even mention it. Either there is a team of chimps that has been trained by DefJam Records to constantly prowl the internet for unattractive photos of Rihanna and somehow remove them, or she actually looks that good all the time. How irritating.

I didn't always harbour such a dislike for her -- I absolutely loved "Pon De Replay", her first song, even when it seemed like it was destined to be a one-hit wonder. And anyone who claims they didn't think "S.O.S. (Rescue Me)" was a fantastic party song is most likely a terrible liar, and at least this I know Cristin would probably agree with.

But then came a few painful songs, including the absolutely awful "Unfaithful". I generally think that any song I know I could improve upon must be complete crap, and the vocals a recording of someone murdering an old cat. And most importantly, I saw Rihanna in concert -- for someone who was just establishing herself as an artist, I was pretty sure she could have made a little more of an effort to a) sing live and b) at least PRETEND to be somewhat humble, a.k.a. not look at everyone around her, including the audience, like we were a stale collection of turds.

I also think everything from this new album is kind of generic crap, including "Umbrella" (annoying), "Shut Up And Drive" (painfully stupid), "Take A Bow" (whiny), and that song with Ne-Yo which sounds like every other song that Ne-Yo has ever done. I almost wanted to like "Don't Stop The Music", and might have succeeded if it weren't for the already unoriginal and overused "mama say mama sa mama coo sa" which makes me want to slap various songwriters silly.

And so, you can imagine my annoyance this week when I realized that I might genuinely like her new one "Disturbia". I still have no idea what she's talking about and I'm afraid to look up the lyrics in fear of suddenly hating it, but it now resides on my current iPod playlist, and will remain there until I either get tired of it or find a reason to despise it along with everything else she's done lately.

Rant over.

Half The Man I Used To Be

This weekend was really just another reminder of how old I'm getting.

I made sure to take Thursday night off from drinking, as I knew I had a lot going on Friday and Saturday.

Friday night I started drinking in the office, per usual, and then went to dinner with my colleagues before a bunch of us headed to a small agency party with both free beer and an intimate acoustic performance from Faker, who is currently one of the more popular Aussie bands on the charts.

Not one to be starstruck, I generally talked and acted like a dick throughout the entire set. This included a clapping competition with a coworker, arguing with the coworker over if the lead singer was checking me or him out (most of the band is gay), and when they got ready to perform their biggest hit and everyone else clapped and cheered, I decided to yell out "NEVER HEARD OF IT!" even though it had been stuck in my head all day.

This was followed by drinks at a bar and then dancing at a club, where around 2am I decided 10 hours of drinking was just about enough, and I grabbed some pizza and headed home.

And thus, I ended up feeling absolutely horrible on Saturday morning, but had already committed to start drinking at lunch. I lasted around 10 hours, but come midnight at my former flatmate's 30th, I hit a wall (no, not literally) and couldn't even imagine drinking more beer or even having to talk to my friends anymore, and I went home.

This just reminds me of the days when we were all 22 and could party all night and then go to work with barely any sleep and look and feel pretty close to fine. Now I can't even go to 2am without whining about it for 3 days. Somebody euthanize me.

Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World

I had hoped to have a relatively quiet weekend, but I suppose it goes without saying that I didn't manage to do anything of the sort. There was one birthday and 4 bars on Friday night (according to reliable sources), a dinner party and then birthday drinks on Saturday night, and more birthday drinks on Sunday.

As I walked home on Sunday, I felt like I finally had just a glimmer of understanding of how a fat person's mind must work. Despite telling myself that once Belle left Australia, I was going to go on a financial diet, I either found excuses to spend unnecessarily, or simply got too drunk to care. And there's the feeling that once you've started, you may as well keep going. Minus some $400 later, all I was left with was the shame and disgust. With the prospect of 3 more friends celebrating their birthdays this weekend (clearly October is a popular time for old people to decide they want babies), I doubt my ATM card will go unused for more than a few hours at a time.

I've never been one to be overly concerned with money. There always seems to be enough there, and although I haven't checked it since I moved to Australia, I imagine that my credit rating is close to perfect.

However, the last few months have been excessive, even for me. I was spending large for the first half of the year, even though I managed to avoid international travel until June, which is usually where most of my money seems to go.

And then, it was June. Between airfare, shopping, drinking, eating, taxis, and whatever else, I imagine that I spent around $4000 on 10 days in NYC. A couple of weeks later, Belle arrived in Sydney, and apart from taking her to some of my favorite bars and restaurants in a desperate (but successful) attempt to impress her with Sydney, we also took a few days to fly up to Port Douglas, which would have cost me another $1500 or so.

In what I wish was my last act of idiotic spending for the year, I spent almost $4500 on a round-the-world ticket for 4 weeks in September, two of which I am required to take without pay. And over the next couple of weeks I will have to buy one more flight, plus 4 sets of train tickets. This doesn't include the hotels for Sri Lanka and India, the car rental in the UK, and of course all of the shopping, eating, and drinking in all 6 or so countries I currently plan to visit. It's safe to say that I will be returning from this trip completely destitute and unable to carry on my life in any recognizable fashion.

Fortunately, fate has stepped in and given me a few helping hands. Earlier this month, I received a check for about $600 from my insurance company, because they've been purchased by some other company. I don't really understand how that entitles me to anything, but I was happy to deposit it into my account.

And then a few days ago, I actually received a $300 stimulus check from the US government, despite the fact that I haven't lived there for almost 3 years now, and haven't paid any tax as a result.

Combined with my recent raise and a hopefully similar Australian tax refund to last year of around $5000 or so, I can only pray that I can keep my head above water long enough to learn how to budget starting some time in October.

In the meantime...can you help a brotha out? (PayPal account for donations will be set up shortly.)

It's Never Too Late...

I absolutely love to read. Unfortunately, it also takes me an extraordinarily long time to read any book.

I have plenty of excuses for this. I'm not actually a slow reader by any means, however the amount of time I manage to devote to reading is embarrassingly tiny. If I'm at home, I find it hard to sit down and read a book when the TV and internet are right there, and I often try to read a bit before I fall asleep at night, but I generally last about 2 paragraphs before I can literally do nothing to keep my eyes open any longer.

This means that the only time I read is on the bus. And only in the mornings, because my brain tends to shut down around 4pm and becomes available exclusively for insulting people and talking about myself (and then only with constant infusions of cheap Australian beer). To add to the pressure of completing an actual book, I also have to read my Time magazine each week. And so, this person who "loves to read" ends up spending 30 minutes a week reading, at most. (The actual amount of time reading might actually be less considering I have an unstoppable need to check out and evaluate each and every person who gets on the bus, rather blatantly as well.)

Given all of the above, I should have foreseen issues when I started to read The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Even if the book wasn't heading for 700 pages long with tiny font, I had been told by several people that it was "such a good book, but the first 500 pages are kinda boring".

I started reading this book in April. So when I found myself still trying to make my way through the same book in early July, I started to get a very real complex about the people on my bus route actually thinking I was mentally disabled. Granted, I'm pretty sure most of them seem to be satisfied with staring at a pole each and every morning, and have probably never even attempted to read anything more complex than Famous Weekly, but that did nothing to make me feel better.

And so, the reason for this rambling blog post is that I am oh so proud to announce that after a concerted effort during my few days in Port Douglas, I have actually finished The Blind Assassin. At this point I don't even care if it was good (I suppose I found it entertaining overall, although I had determined all of the supposed "twists" when I was still in the first boring 500 pages), but it's no longer my mark of shame in the mornings and I'm not sure any words can describe my sense of relief.

As a mental break, I've now started reading the latest from David Sedaris, which I am sure I will not only find amusing, but will probably be a very light effort in the reading department. Now I only have to worry about laughing to myself at 8am in the morning, and I will take insane over retarded any day.

Really, He's Just Another Creepy Guy In A Hat

I am thoroughly annoyed these last few days, mostly due to the "celebration" of World Youth Day here in Sydney all week. I use quotes around "celebration" because I'm not sure how appropriate that word is for what has to be the most unappealing and boring half million people that have ever descended on what should otherwise be a raucous and drunken city.

Tuesday was pretty painful, with so many Catholic pilgrims walking down the street outside my office that I was actually concerned I might snap and tackle several of them to the ground. It's not their religion or faith that bothers me so much. And I haven't loved the constant singing and religious chanting, but that hasn't been the clincher either. It's surprisingly been the absolutely awful way each and every one of them is dressed. Seriously people, you haven't seen this many pairs of tapered jeans since the early 90's, and paired with the hideous orange, red and yellow backpack they've all been equipped with, it's all just a little too much for my only somewhat fashion conscious eyes.

And so, since today is when the Pope himself will be getting off a ferry and walking down the street right outside my building, while all 500,000 of these asshole groupies follow him all afternoon, I have opted to "work from home". As of 1.37pm today, this has consisted of getting out of bed late, going for a long swim, sitting in the sauna for a bit, and then splitting my time between eating and cleaning my apartment. My company definitely got its money's worth today.

Now I'm off to a boozy lunch with a colleague who has found herself in a similar situation, but if I'm home before my dinner plans this evening, maybe I will use all this free time to post again on my somewhat neglected blog.

Life How It Should Be

The weekend in Port Douglas was pretty much perfect. As much fun as New York was, there was pretty much nothing truly relaxing about my time there, so a weekend of minimal partying was just what I needed.

After arriving there late Thursday night, we spent Friday morning on the beach, before heading into town for some food and then drinking ourselves silly all afternoon. My big mistake there was not taking into account the fact that Belle a) isn't used to Australian style drinking and b) is about 3 feet tall. By 7pm she was too drunk to make sense of anything going on around us, and we had to grab her a coffee and head back to the hotel room, where she passed out by 8pm.

Saturday was spent on the reef where we snorkeled, ate tons of food, and made a few friends, including a chick from London who lives in Sydney. She joined us for dinner and drinks that night (along with a friend of mine who happened to be in town) but we managed to keep things civilized.

On Sunday we'd had a mild inclination to head to the rainforest nearby, but it essentially came down to choosing between that or a couple of hours at a spa getting massages and facials. I'll let you guess which option won out.

So now I'm back in Sydney with even less motivation than I had last week, which I didn't think was possible. I'm also in the process of booking my next vacation, which will involve being in 8 countries on 4 continents over the course of 4 weeks. Because why do anything half-assed.

Yes, Another One

That's right, despite just getting back from NYC around 2 weeks ago, I'm going on another vacation -- flying up to Port Douglas this evening with Belle, who is visiting from LA.

Not that I've been blogging with abandon lately, but at least this time I have a valid excuse. See you in a few days.

Huh? "Dignity"? What?

I knew the weekend wouldn't be particularly respectable when I had this MSN conversation with a my work friend at 3pm:

Coworker: i'm bored

Zander: same...i'm officially not doing anything work-related until monday

Coworker: pub?

Zander: pub.


Needless to say, we were both drunk for the 4.30pm Friday meeting (where we drank more) and in fine form by the time we finished up at another bar around 8ish. Fortunately, it still ended up being a quiet-ish night.

Saturday, not so much. I started at 1pm at a lawn bowls birthday party, stopped into a bar for a couple of hours with some other friends, and ended up at The Retro from 8pm onwards for a friend's farewell bash.

The Retro is one of those ridiculously tacky places that plays 80's and 90's music (or basically, anything you should be embarrassed to love), so I spent the whole day beforehand telling everyone how I was totally just going to stop in to show face and then leave as soon as possible. Naturally, I ended up singing and dancing along for hours, have absolutely no recollection of how or when I got home (although the time I can figure out from all of the unintelligible text messages I apparently sent), and woke up still drunk and wearing a glowstick band around my wrist.

The photos have begun to surface on Facebook, so I may as well share one here before retreating into myself for a few days before the stench of shame has faded:

Ouch

Easily my favorite moment from all of Saturday night was around halfway through, when I looked up and saw my coworker Chrissy dancing on the stage, across the ballroom. I took off my glittery silver hat and waved it in the air to get her attention.

Upon seeing me, she waved back, clearly excited...and then dropped out of view. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in a room full of 2,000 of our colleagues, she fell off the stage.

At first I was a bit shocked and concerned, and headed straight over to where she would have fallen. Not seeing here there, I went to our table, where she was sitting at a chair while another team member asked if she was okay. She was a bit bruised, but mostly fine, not including the fact that one of the straps on her dress had completely broken when she apparently fell right into the middle of a circle of people dancing.

And so, I did what any concerned manager would do in that situation -- I literally fell down on the floor and laughed until I cried. All while she sat there glaring at me. Later on, after she'd recovered a bit, she said to me "Zander, of all the people who could possibly have seen that happen to me, you definitely would have been my last choice. I hate you."

She totally meant that in an endearing way, though.

While you ponder if I'm deluding myself or not, here are the pictures from Saturday night.

*Sophistication not required

This Saturday was our annual ball. Last year we were really able to let loose with the Gotham City Black & White Ball theme, which is probably part of the reason we ended up with a bit of a boring theme this year: Sparkle & Sophistication.

I personally chose to dispense with the sophistication and focus purely on the SPARKLE, and I think I did pretty well considering I purchased my accessories only hours before the event:




To add to the obnoxiousness (is that a word? I feel like I should know the answer to that), I also bought a small container of glitter, and once everyone was drunk enough, dumped it over a couple of my colleagues. Needless to say, we've all since been picking glitter out of our hair, clothes, and beds. And everyone hates me. Per usual.

NY Style

I have long maintained that despite how much of a drunken moron I am in Sydney, I was much more of a drunken asshole in New York.

Of the many times I displayed that character trait over the past 10 days, I'm pretty sure that Thursday night was my shining moment.

After drinking far too much vodka in a short space of time, I met some friends at a bar where there happened to be a drag show on that night. A friend ended up on stage, so I pulled out my camera to take a picture. Upon seeing this, the drag queen yelled at me to "Make [her] look pretty!"

Without missing a beat, my mouth responded with "It's not a magic wand, sweetheart.", to which the entire bar went "Ooohhhhhhh", all prompting the drag queen to completely flip out, come through the crowd, grab me by my collar, and spit in my face.

I don't claim for a moment that I didn't deserve that. I'm more amazed that NYC seems to bring out some untapped reserve of bitchy comments that seem to remain at least slightly concealed when I'm in Sydney. Seems a bit of a waste, really.

Pictures from New York coming soon...

How Am I Still Alive?

Sometimes the amount of energy I'm able to drum up to keep partying amazes even me.

My flight landed a little before 6pm on Friday, and after a quick shower and a change, I proceeded to go to dinner, drinks, and then party until 5 in the morning. And even though I was the one who had just gotten off a 24 hour flight, it was all of the New Yorkers who were dropping like flies. In the end it was only me and Jaya, who always puts in a good effort, but when she went to put down her drink on the table and missed by several feet (essentially dropping it in the middle of the dancefloor, and on someone's foot, no less), I knew that our night had ended.

Saturday was more of the same, and we ended up in Hell's Kitchen dancing like idiots and taking stupid photos.

And Sunday managed to be just as ridiculous, as we decided to hit up Libation for their $19 brunch special that now includes three premium cocktails (usually worth some $15 each) before moving on to a few more bars, including Porch in Alphabet City which apparently turns into an afternoon dance party - with free dumplings. Ah, the randomness of NYC.

As usual, Jaya and I were the last ones standing (or maybe 'swaying' would be more accurate by that point), so we made our pilgrimage to Tribe and ended up dancing at a packed Le Souk after 1am, which was around the time Jaya remembered she actually had a job to go to the next day.

From the looks of it, today (Monday) is the only day I'm here that has even the potential to be a relatively quiet night involving less than 10 alcoholic beverages. Wish me luck.

First Class Comes To Me

One thing a lot of people comment on when I say I'm flying from Sydney to NYC and back is the 24 hour trip each way. I generally don't mind it too much, partially because I've always loved flying, and partially because it's all part of the journey to me. But of course, I like it a little better when I'm able to upgrade and fly in luxury.

Unfortunately, the airline I usually fly decided that I wasn't allowed to use my points to upgrade to Business class because I had supposedly bought the ticket on sale. I'm not sure when an airfare to anywhere that costs more than $2300 started to be considered a bargain, but I figured I would just deal with the situation and save my points for another day.

But then fate stepped in to lend a helping hand. I still ended up in Economy, but the woman checking me in was good enough to get me an exit row seat, and even tagged my bags as Priority just to help me get to the bar a little faster once I finally got to NY.

I also ended up sitting next to a pretty cool guy for the entire trip. I didn't talk to him much on the long first leg as I was busy catching up on movies and taking naps in between, but ran into him during the LAX layover and was a bit friendlier for the LAX to NYC leg. More importantly, an older and ridiculously gay (not to mention hilarious) flight attendant took a liking to him. I almost wanted to be offended that I was completely overlooked, but in all fairness the guy did look a lot like Matt Damon, and was insanely nice (he looks after his down syndrome brother when he's home in Australia, and was on his way to teach kids how to swim at summer camp in Maine), and while I am pretty full of myself, I didn't really ever think I could compete with a guy who seems like a character out of some dippy romantic comedy that tends to set women's expectations of "real men" way too high.

So, the flight attendant started bringing us stuff from first class. This included:

• Fancy desserts
• An entire cheese and fruit platter
• Bottle of port
• Half bottle of Dom Perignon
• First class headphones (supposedly valued at $450, still in my possession)
• Travel kits

He even offered to steal some bottles of booze from Duty Free for us, but at that point we had to decline, since that sounded a little too sketchy.

The one good thing about being the wingman in this situation was that I didn't feel like I personally had to return any favors (not that any were involved, that I know of), since I was just benefiting from association.

And now I'm in NYC, unable to describe how thrilled I am to be here, and have already had the greatest night of dinner, drinks, and dancing, which will likely be blogged about in a few days. Greatest. City. Ever.

Finally...

As mentioned in my last post, work has been ridiculous for the last couple of weeks. My client seems to be getting steadily more demanding AND idiotic, which is a truly powerful combination of traits to have to deal with on a daily basis.

For example - yesterday, I had a meeting to review some creatives with the client. My designer and I had already decided which one we preferred and would recommend, so of course as soon as we pulled the two designs out, my client says he loves the hideous one that we would never want to take credit for.

A ten minute discussion ensued that focused only on the colors used in each design, with him advocating the use of the one that combined an awful orange and light blue theme, while we argued for the simple and striking design.

And after all of that, he actually leaned back and said to us: "Well, I'm actually color blind, so I shouldn't have an opinion." He went on to explain that he actually can't tell any dark colors apart. I found the entire situation so ludicrous that all I could do was attempt to hold in my laughter at how such a person could even get to a mid-level position in marketing.

A few weeks ago, that situation would have sent me over the edge, and I would have returned to the office fuming and ranting. But it doesn't matter. It really doesn't affect my life simply because I am flying out to New York this morning. And no half-witted marketing peon is going to ruin my mood. Updates coming shortly...

Once Again...

...the blog was forgotten. This week has been completely insane, since we had Monday off for a public holiday, and I am not working tomorrow because I will be on a plane back to NYC.

However, this weekend did have a few highlights. Friday, I was exhausted after only a few hours of sleep, but give myself a pat on the back for drinking through my last conference call of the day, polishing off half a bottle of wine at a bar, and then heading to a friend's place for a beer and probably a few insults before going to a friend's birthday dinner.

Once there, I asked some guy I'd never met if he was dating a girl at the table. Turned out they were brother and sister. So much for first impressions. I eventually knocked over and broke a glass of wine while teaching people what "The Spiderman" was in sexual slang, and even went to Trademark for a few beers and a couple of tequila shots before quickly leaving when I realized that I was likely to topple over at any second.


Saturday was pretty low-key -- drinks in Newtown for a few hours, followed by a birthday party at Arthouse, and I got myself home and in bed by around midnight.

And Sunday was probably the most interesting. It looked like I was going to finally have a quiet evening at home -- and it was depressing me to the point of tears. Just when I'd decided I had given up, and the next person to invite me to something that evening was going to get an affirmative answer, I had a call from friends drinking in Paddington, and got to the pub in 20 minutes. Turned out we were celebrating the fact that one of them had been arrested for drunk driving (which they annoyingly call "drink driving" here), but by the time he got to the station and took another test he was just below the limit, and was released.

Once the drunkest of the crew went home, LuLu and I decided to hang out with her friends at the pub, who happened to also be the owners and managers. Far too many free beers and tequila shots later, we got the hell out of there when it became apparent that a couple of lesbians were about to instigate World War III, and didn't care who was caught in the crossfire. Still, I'm a firm believer that free shots and lesbian drama are key ingredients for a perfect night.

And Monday was just more drinking from 2pm onwards. My poor liver.


So now I've just had the craziest week, while barely having 5 minutes to plan who I'm going to be able to meet up with while I'm back in NY after the first time in 16 months, and while some friends have been more than accomodating, others have been less than helpful, which just gives me visions of people giving me shit about not spending enough time with them -- and me not caring.

And although I sound like a bitter jerk at the moment, I am actually ridiculously excited to spend 10 days in NY after so long, so much so that the antics of my Client From Hell are purely amusing at this point. I need to go away more often...

Alive and Kicking

Apologies for the blog silence lately. Apart from a drunken dance party at a friend's place on Saturday after I was finished at work, and then offending a friend's mother at lunch on Sunday, I've actually been pretty quiet.

Last night was my first night being out and social after the weekend. We actually started at lunchtime at Opera Bar for a farewell, moved to our local work pub, and stopped into a Korean BBQ joint for dinner. I made the very wise decision to go home after dinner and turn down karaoke, which I'm thanking myself for having seen the condition of several of my colleagues. One has already admitted he is still drunk and literally looks like he is about to pass out on his desk.

Meanwhile I've got plans tonight and tomorrow, and we have a long weekend coming up, so there may be some stories, although I'm trying to keep things relatively low key, as I should probably be saving my energy (and money) for my trip to NYC next Friday. Fat chance, I know, but it's good to have goals.

Professional Slacker

Fry and Duff flew in on Tuesday night to spend a few nights with me before they headed back to NYC. I somehow managed to ensure that I had not one meeting on Wednesday, so I called in sick, and we decided to take a long boozy lunch at Cafe Sydney, possibly my favorite restaurant here.


This all would have been a little more enjoyable if, while sitting on the bus to the restaurant, I hadn't looked out the window and seen my main client standing directly in front of us. I'm still not sure if he saw me or not, but I figure we can maintain a don't ask-don't tell policy and avoid making things awkward.

Once I was over that, we had a fantastic lunch for a couple of hours, did some drunk shopping, and then headed to the Dolphin to keep drinking wine, making it a 10 hour binge session. Combined with showing up late and leaving early on Thursday and Friday, I don't think I'll be winning employee of the month anytime soon.

And as some sort of sweet revenge from my client, I will definitely have to spend a few hours in the office today to get something ready for a 9am meeting on Monday. Considering I've spent so little time in the office this week and not working on a weekend in months, I'll just get over it. And I'm thinking the ready supply of free beer in the office will help.

Top Form

I can't even bother to try and fully describe the madness of the last week, so here's my laziest attempt.

I flew down to Melbourne on a "business trip" on Thursday night, for one meeting on Friday morning. At the last minute the client tried to tell me that I shouldn't bother, but I'd already made plans to meet up with friends for drinks, so I insisted that I be there for such a valuable meeting, and got on the flight anyway. The client probably wasn't impressed when I showed up hungover to the Friday meeting, having been out drinking and dancing until 3 in the morning, but it's so hard to care at times like that.

I normally would have stayed in Melbourne for another night, but I flew back to Sydney for our work quarterly event, which was salsa dancing lessons (while drinking endless amounts of sangria) followed by tequila shots and cigars. I unfortunately headed off to another bar just before one of our senior managers was sitting on a couch, leaned over to get something off the table, and simply keeled over onto the floor, to the utter shock of anyone in the vicinity.

Saturday was deceptively quiet until I went to some farewell drinks around 7pm, where everyone was about an hour ahead of me on the bottles of wine. After everyone insisted that I accompany them later to a dance club, they started dropping like flies around midnight, so I grabbed my friend Rina and headed to crash my coworkers sister's bachelorette party nearby. I give myself points for not stripping, but I don't actually remember getting home.

And on Sunday, I was close to death, but still managed a few beers at a BBQ before going to a Eurovision party to celebrate all of the weirdness and tacky shit that is Europe and their taste in entertainment. Potentially a proper post coming on that one later.

Anyway, it's now Tuesday, and even if I hadn't had an awful day and want to murder my main client, Fry and Duff are flying in tonight to stay with me for 4 nights, so I'm calling in sick to go drinking tomorrow. Life is good -- my liver, not so much.

Ungrateful

Forgot to mention this before, but as I was so ridiculously hungover last Sunday, I didn't get around to doing much. This included calling my mother for Mother's Day.

And so, I woke up on Monday morning to an email from my mother, to both myself and my brother, with the subject line "Happy Mother's Day" and the message "Thanks for nothing."

Anyone I've told about this simply responds with "Your mom is awesome." I, on the other hand, thinks the woman lives for these moments.

I promptly followed up with an apology phone call and painfully expensive bouquet of flowers to be delivered the next day, with an essence of guilt included.

(My brother said he had mailed a card, which eventually arrived at my mother's house on the other side of the Atlantic having been postmarked for one day before Mother's Day. When this was mentioned he promptly denied that he had waited until the last minute to send the card, which I find hilarious since there's hard evidence to the contrary.)