Dealing with my hangover with grace and dignity..

..and not in any way being a growling head-clutching hermit. Got home last night at 6:30, and had to be up for work at 8. Except I got up at 10, full in the knowledge that the shop couldn't open without me, but not giving a toss. Which would be fine, except that Im working in an Oxfam shop, so if I fuck up it's like Im fucking up Africa or something. Which is a lot of guilt to handle on a blinding hangover.

Did coke last night for the first time this year. And actually didn't go home with the guilts, which was amazingly nice. So Im definitely a convert to the occasion-drugging. Birthdays, big parties, festivals, blue mondays. And obviously any time Im with The Cats. Im referring to my group of friends who Ive known for a couple of years now, and our friendship is based on us all frequenting/working at a particular pub, and bonding over much booze, gear, lock-ins, strip poker and forfeits. We are a debaucherous, frivolous group of good time guys and gals, but a more warm-hearted genuine bunch of people you just won't find.

Anyway, I know its passe and a bit twee, but I'll be using pseudonyms for the people in my life in this blog, not for any kind consideration for their privacy, but mainly so I don't feel hugely exposed and a bit naked in public (which is, coincidentally, another favourite pastime of The Cats).

The Cats are so-called because sometimes when we're all out on a particularly hedonistic night, I can't help but get The Cat Empire's 'The Wine Song' in my head, and it seems to sum up our vibe (at the best of times) pretty definitively..

Songs and melodies change and change, and sway
But they still stay the same.
The songs that we sung when the dark days come
Are the songs that we sang when we chased them away.
If I ever found a pot of gold, I'd buy bottles untold of the nectar of the vines.
Oh I'm going to die with a twinkle in my eye,
Cause I sung songs, spun stories, loved, laughed and drank wine.

Tomorrow is another day
The cats are out to play, to play
That old rusty spaceship wants to sail
Into the milkyway again, on a river of red, red wine..

Run...
Lets have some fun...
We'll drink..
A toast to the sun...

In summer the bushfires rage, and rage, and rage
On such beautiful days
And we fight them with water that runs through the cracks
Water we're desperately trying to save
So I'll just live on wine, and water my vines
And sleep on the wind with the fires right behind
And sing on the beaches and dance through the night
Oh we'll cry "pass the wine, pass the wine, pass the wine"...