The Amber Social

02/09/2006 - 1:21am

I’m light-headed, I’m happy, I’m drunk. Hence blogging at 1am-ish on a Saturday morning. Okay, I’m not all that drunk, I’ve paced myself out quite nicely. However, I am rather happy and confused. I’ve had a very full 24 hours so let me explain…

I’ve been on a bit of a downer all week, mostly because my current ‘work’ involves going over things I’ve already written and creating exam questions for them. Also I think my current personal situation has suddenly shifted its weight in a manner that has started to affect me. I mean, you don’t get used to your parents splitting up in a fortnight. And you don’t screw your ex and then screw him over in the same night (not that we viewed it like that but it has its ramifications, albeit delayed ones). And you don’t feel sudden bouts of social brown-outage for no apparent reason at random times. Reclaim Pluto, goddammit, its lack of planetary status has put my alignments out of whack.

So I went shopping with Sir on Thursday night. We started at JB Hi-Fi buying CDs and DVDs, then worked our way down to Target to buy clothes, where I bought a hot dress. The best thing about it was that it was a size 12 and cost, wait for it... $8.87. I also convinced Sir to buy a dress, the first dress she's ever worn as an adult. All grown up! Afterwards I met my cousins Cat (NZ) and Mabs (Melbourne) at my other cousin Alison's place in Pyrmont. Drinking and order-in dinner ensued. Ali then drove Mabs and I back to my place, at which point it was about midnight.

Unfortunately it was also the first issue of Crunch (our fortnightly newsletter) given to me to lay out. I stayed up until 4am to finish it off. Usually it wouldn't have taken so long except that I'd had some wine, I was tired and, as I mentioned before, on the brink of illness. But I was rather happy with the results, even though next time I will be combing through for spelling and grammar mistakes.

On Friday I began the morning rather badly by snapping at Roland when he sidled up to me and asked me about the title to his contribution to Crunch. I was given two titles so I used one as a title and the other as a subtitle, which I told him. He was annoyed, saying it should have all been 'title', (I suppose like Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night or What You Will', for example) and wanted me to change it. I said I couldn't change it because I'd already made it into a pdf and I didn't have the tools to edit it at work and left it at that. Later I apologised for snapping but did point out that he should have suggested any specific layout issues at the time of submission, not after I'd spent hours laying it out.

The day got much better, though. I started bopping along to The Cat Empire on my media player and was actually rather productive. Then at 1:15pm we were ordered to go down to the Bowling Club for our company 'excursion'. It had a rather summer camp feel to it, actually. The weather was on the hot side of warm for the most part. A bunch of us got sidetracked on the way there. I knew the club but didn't know where the entrance was so we ended up coming through a side gate. I was talking to Andrew (quiet guy from the primary section) for the trek, which was a nice way to chat to a little known co-worker.

Lawn bowling was great. At first I wasn’t too impressed, but as I started to get the hang of it I began to see its merits. The best thing about the whole afternoon was the strong comraderie built up between all sorts of people. There were a lot of different cliques that formed and I found that I didn’t fit into any of the in-depth conversations (and when I say ‘didn’t fit into’ I don’t mean that they were exclusive but I could perceive quite clearly that I didn’t belong, in a benign way). But you know what? I found my crew. I felt completely comfortable joining some of the multimedia team, in particular Jess, Funda, Rodrigo, David and Pia. Surprisingly, neither of the Vanessas, who usually hang around this bunch, were around.

There was a bar tab so most of the company were completely off their face, which ended up being harmlessly amusing. I only had two alcoholic drinks the whole afternoon, spread quite far apart, so I was actually sober for the most part. Apparently Nick (our MD) had offered Clint $500 to do a nudie run down the bowling green, which Clint refused. But then I got it into my head that I had to orchestrate a walk-off between Ben and Clint, a concept that needs a bit of explaining.

(Basically, it’s a bit of a play-up from soccer. Clint doesn’t believe that Ben is captain material and Ben doesn’t really value the captaincy but refuses to give it to Clint. I was joking with Ben about how Clint might depose him and that there was money riding on the outcome. Ben asked about who I was betting for and I said I’d have to consider his weapon of choice, as Clint had already nominated numchucks, then added that it really came down to who looked better in shorts. He replied that he wouldn’t choose a weapon and would instead rely on the latter method. Then I suggested that they would have to, at some stage, have a walk-off à la ‘Zoolander’).

Clint was keen on the challenge and Ben, although he took some coaxing (and plenty of booze), eventually decided he would do it for the $500 prizemoney initially put towards Clint’s nudie run. In the end that didn’t eventuate because Clint, for all his bravado, decided against it. Probably to his better judgement, in retrospect. Ben would have kicked his arse.

After lawn bowls we went to the pub as per usual. I convinced Sibylla and Ben to come to the Young Writers’ Festival while sipping a cocktail, and then persuaded James to play pool, at which we kicked arse, playing against James’ housemate and a variety of his partners. Then somehow I swapped tables and played against Melissa and Paul in a mutable team that consisted of part-Dougal, part-Ben and I. Somehow we lost the game to Paul from five down. I blame the uncertainty of the dynamics.

Paul was up to his usual tricks, this time with Melissa. My question is whether he uses pool to feel up his underlings or whether he was just completely drunk again and this is his true nature coming through. Melissa, for all her posturing about what happened the last time (she was told about it), didn’t exactly tell him where to go. Paul is a sad, sad drunken man. Ben actually got rather touchy-feely too, which I was annnoyed at because I thought he'd be more respectable, especially considering he has a girl, but at least I know this before I start getting ideas in my head.

Anyway, Gill convinced a bunch of us to move on and go to the city so we ended up in a taxi going to The Oaks (which is not in the city but in Neutral Bay, north of the city). Paul, Gill, Melissa and Ian took the first taxi, followed by Michael, Ben, Penny and I. Twas a great mix and we got on rather famously, albeit in conversational pairs for the most part. Later we had ring-ins such as Bridie, Gill’s friend who I met at soccer a couple of weeks back, Lizzie, who’d arrived completely coincidentally with her friend Alex, and then Momita, Ian’s lovely girlfriend.

I had a beer, bringing my total consumption to three beers and a cocktail in eight hours. Yes, still reasonably sober. Everyone else, I must say, was tanked. I believe this will haunt them in the morning. Paul was rather dazed, Melissa kept repeating herself, Gill’s eyes started to do drunk darting movements and Ben was being chummy. Ian had had quite a bit but he was still coherent and didn’t display any particular signs of drunkenness and Michael and Penny were tipsy but not wasted. Most started being unwittingly revealing, such as Ben explaining a bit about the fight he’d had with his girlfriend and asking for advice and Penny talking a bit about the job she’ll be leaving us to join. Sad. It’s like the end of an era and it has only been three months.

The city folk – Gill, Melissa and Bridie – left and then Ian, Mo and I decided to catch a taxi to Waverton, which broke the rest of the party. Ben was a bit of a lost sheep at that point because he lives in Carlingford and everyone else lived in nearby suburbs, like Cremorne. If Mable hadn’t been occupying our sofa bed this weekend, I would have seriously considered offering it to him, he was so out of it. Then Sir would have thought I’d ‘invited him back to my fitball’. Hahahahaha! No, actually I wouldn't have asked him home for I have learnt from Assumpta's mistakes with co-workers. He had bought me a beer (although I’d refused one when he offered a round) so I sculled it, which he found rather impressive, and then Ian, Mo and I went to get a kebab from across the road, leaving him to find his niche with Paul, Lizzie and Alex.

So I've just led Mabs home from the station although (and I feel rather stupid) she actually pointed out a shortcut from my place to the station that I never knew existed. Good night and good luck.