Thursday night I wasn’t in the mood to go straight home, so I roped Al into going for just one. We left the pub at nine. All very civilized. I remember having three glasses of red. Al however said that there were four. Given what transpired next, I am inclined to believe him.

Three or four- That’s a lot of vino, but I can usually handle that. Not saying it’s a good idea- just that I can handle it. I usually however pace myself – especially when drinking wine. I will drink water between the glasses. Spread it out over six-eight hours. I also usually have food in my stomach.

But not Thursday. I drank four (large) glasses of red- basically a bottle if not more on maybe 350-500 calories. In three hours.

I woke up at 6 in the morning in bed. Naked. Luckily it was my bed and Stuart was lying next to me. I flipped the events of the evening Rolodex in my head.

Left the pub. Okay. Laying here in bed. Okay.

Left the pub. Bed.

Pub. Bed.

I was missing everything in between. This has never happened to me before.

Stuart had put a large glass of water and ibuprophen on the dresser for me so I took a couple even though I felt okay and drank half the water.

Stuart stirred and peeked his head over the duvet.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“You were lashed.”

“Yeah. I don’t remember anything after leaving the pub.”

“You came home at 9:30 singing the French national anthem.”

“I was singing The Marseillaise?”

“See. I didn’t even know it was called that.”

“But I don’t know the words to The Marseillaise.”

“Well, they’re in your head somewhere.”

“I think I’ve watched Casablanca a few too many times.”

“I tried to make you go to bed but you refused. I tricked you by saying you would be more comfortable in your dressing gown.”

Something was coming back. “You undressed me?”

“Yes. And you weren’t very accommodating. You kept rolling around. Then you screamed, ‘Stop hitting me!’ Then you giggled.

“That’s funny.”

“I’m sure our neighbours thought so. Do you remember talking to your mum?”

“I talked to my mom?”

“Yeah, something happened with you sister. She had to have a second surgery. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes. She’d called and left a message and you called back.”

“I called back?”

“At 12:30. You were sitting up talking really loudly and woke me up and I had to send you out of the room. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

I can’t believe I can’t remember either. It’s rather scary. I did some quick research on the topic this morning and I found a really great article by Aaron White, PhD. Basically alcohol messes with your brain hitting the record button.

Alcohol primarily disrupts the ability to form new long-term memories; it causes less disruption of recall of previously established long-term memories or of the ability to keep new information active in short-term memory for a few seconds or more. At low doses, the impairments produced by alcohol are often subtle, though they are detectable in controlled conditions. As the amount of alcohol consumed increases, so does the magnitude of the memory impairments. Large quantities of alcohol, particularly if consumed rapidly, can produce a blackout, an interval of time for which the intoxicated person cannot recall key details of events, or even entire events. En bloc blackouts are stretches of time for which the person has no memory whatsoever. Fragmentary blackouts are episodes for which the drinker’s memory is spotty, with “islands” of memory providing some insight into what transpired, and for which more recall is usually possible if the drinker is cued by others. Blackouts are much more common among social drinkers than previously assumed and should be viewed as a potential consequence of acute intoxication regardless of age or whether one is clinically dependent upon alcohol.

There is one benefit of me not eating enough and going to bed without dinner. I was a pound and half lighter Thursday morning than I was on Wednesday. Maybe there is something with the whole starvation thing. (of course I am kidding. And anyone that knows me knows that would not be possible for me to ever do)

I told Al that I had a black-out.

He was surprised. “You must have been drunk!”

That made me feel mildly better that while my record button had been taped over, at least I was functional. . . to someone who had had four pints.

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine. Great. I’m hungry because I haven’ had breakfast, but other than that fine. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Are you kidding? That’s great. They should take your blood and study it. Do tests on you to find the secret to no more hangovers.”

While I don’t generally get hangovers, I really don’t fancy another memory gap.

Although, it would be rather fabulous, if deep inside me, are the words to The Marseillaise.

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5:30 PM
Pub with Al. I had been good not drinking all week other than the Monday marathon. Wasn’t in the mood to hang out with the work masses, as at the moment there are a few I could happily roast on a spit. Al felt the same way.

Round one. Guinness.

6:19 PM
Round two. Switch to Deuchars (which is a lovely ale)

7:30 PM
This is where we said we were going to stop. Cut to:
Round three and four (and I can’t remember but there may have been a five.)

10:30 PM
Hungry, we call to try and get a table at Bodean’s in Soho. No go so we call the one in Clapham but they’re closed for renovation. We decide on a curry. We also have a pint of cobra with our meal.

11:47 PM
Time to go home. I get on a train to Balham.

12:45 AM
I wake up in East Croydon. Fucken’ hell.

12:50 AM
Get on a train going to Clapham Junction.

1:08 AM

Arrive in Clapham Junction but there are no more trains to Balham. Consider getting a bus but not sure which bus to take.

Decide to walk home.

While annoyed at myself am slightly amused at watching the packs of drunken girls wearing the exact same outfit stumble down the street. There is an interesting energy on Northcote Road and I feel safe which in retrospect is incredibly dangerous.

1:47 AM
I’m home.

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Week one of my marathon training. Walked home Monday- 4.4 miles. Was supposed to do it again last night but let’s just say that didn’t happen and was a lazy thing this morning even though I woke up at 6. It was just much nicer to stay snuggled to Stuart and listen to him snore.Can’t walk tonight or at lunch so need to be good the rest of the week.And the week after.And the week after. . . 

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Because Scott asked for photos, I give you photos. Click here for Saturday night silliness.

Is rather pathetic. . . I only lasted about an hour and a half in my high heels. The transvestites you can see in the picture behind me lasted in their Manolo’s until three. They also had better legs than me. But that can’t be helped. Most men that are willing to put on a dress look better in it than the average woman will.

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I glance at that cloud, it looks like a piano. I think to myself—mention it in some story that a cloud floated by looking like a piano. There’s a scent of heliotrope. I rush to make a mental note: cloying smell, widow’s flower, use it in describing a summer’s evening. I catch my every sentence, every word—yours too—and rush to lock them up in my literary storehouse—maybe they’ll come in handy! . . . I can’t escape myself. I feel like I’m a parasite feeding on my own life. –Trigorin in The Seagull 

I pulled out my moleskine and wrote down a blurb that Jesse had just said that was amusing, “Of course I’m miserable! If I wasn’t miserable I would be unhappy.”

“I always do this. People around me are much more interesting than I am,” I apologised as I wrote.

“Do you know The Seagull?”

“Yeah, but it’s been years.”

“Act Two Nina and Trigorin. He’s talks about writing stuff in his notebooks. The same disease that you have.”

I laughed. “It is a disease. And sometimes, I look at the note and I don’t understand what it means. Why it was so important. Like this. . .” I flipped to a page and read, ‘And I let him speak because he hadn’t spoken in years!’ I have no idea what that is about. Other stuff is good though.”

“Spill it.”

I flipped back a few pages. “Ah. I was walking down 6th and a couple was walking the other way and the man said, ‘Macy’s? Like why?’ and she said, ‘Why? It’s like, an ENTIRE city block. .”

“It is. Have you gone?”

“I’m avoiding it. Nothing good could come of my going inside. Or this. . . this is something that I said but I wrote it down. My friend was teasing me about something. ‘First off. Fuck you. . . Second. What did you say?’ Or this is from Stuart, ‘I never drink at weddings. Only wedding I’ve drunk at was ours.”

Jesse laughed. I flipped back a page. “Or this one is good. I was on the Eurostar coming back to London and there were these two American girls. Couldn’t have been older than twenty. They were going through a Paris Vogue like they were in an art museum and they were talking about London and people they might see and one said with an uptalk accent, ‘I would be more excited to see JK Rowling than the Prince.’”

“Funny. You’ll need to use them. I’m still waiting for a novel or a play or something.”

“I know. I know. . .”

“What was the one line from your play I liked. . . Was this you. . . ? ‘Who will hold me if I’m holding you?’”

I had a strange experience of hearing something familiar yet new. Like when you see a photograph of yourself that you know is you, but you have no memory of it being taken.

“I think it was me. But I don’t remember. Probably from one of those one-acts sitting in a drawer.”

“It’s a good line.”

“It is. I’ll write it down.”

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Tonight I am going to my first Fancy Dress party. When I first heard the phrase ‘fancy dress’ I assumed that it was a euphemism for black tie. But no, ‘fancy dress’ means costume party. The odd thing is Brits don’t do Halloween really but they love fancy dress parties.

Tonight it is for a work mate’s Thirtieth Birthday and the theme is to come dressed as what you wanted to be when you were little.

I’ve had a bit of a hard time. At first I thought of Princess Leia but that look wouldn’t be particularly attractive on me. Laura Ingles Wilder and Inspector Cloussou gave me a similar problem. I thought about Marilyn Monroe not out of any particular wish to be her, but because I wanted to be an actress and it would be a fun chance to vamp it up. That choice however would have required my dropping 70 quid between the dress and the wig.

I’ve settled on a sexy librarian, which only requires me to buy some fishnets. Wearing my hair up in a chignon, my 1950’s cats eye glasses, brown silk (tight) shirt, black skirt, wicked high heels that put up to around 5’6’’ (taking ballet flats with me for walking to the tube and to switch out when the inevitable pain becomes too much) and will be carrying a copy of The New York Public Library Desk Reference.

Since Stuart has decided that he is drinking, “Ad hoc. Don’t look at me like that. I can drink if I want to.” I may decide to allow myself a few cocktails. I was bad in New York. My defence is it came after I got a text from Stuart that told me that he was lashed.

For Buettners 40h Matt and I are going to arrange for him to receive a coffin at work. That should fuck him up for a while.

It couldn’t have come at the worst time. I was waiting for my friends at a very sexy New Yorky steak house and I was gagging for a glass of red. I used his transgression as a get out of jail free card for some vino.

He wasn’t happy that I could tell he was drinking from a text.

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I’m minding my own business, wading through my e-mail, thinking about where I want to go for lunch even though it’s only 10:30. Take a swig of coffee and look at the IM that Al just sent me:

AL: just so you know, I’ve just discovered that abortion jokes don’t go down too well.

I nearly spewed. And then I laughed.

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“Stuart? What time do we get back Sunday?”

We are going to Rome this weekend. I’d planned on staying in London for the long four-day Easter weekend, but a few weeks ago I came home to find that Stuart had done a drunken Expedia purchase.

“Five.”

“So I won’t have time to make Easter dinner then. Okay. Maybe I’ll do it Monday.”

“Easter dinner?”

“Easter dinner.”

“What do you mean Easter dinner?”

“You know. A meal. On Easter. Where Christians and those that are no longer Christian but still carry on the trappings of Christian celebration get together and eat some form of roast beast.”

“What do you have?”

“I usually make lamb.”

“I’ve never heard of this.”

“You’re kidding. You must be.”

“No.”

“This is a fairly common thing Stuart. A lot of people go home to spend time being tortured by their families.”

“Yeah. No. Never heard of it. Is Al going home?”

“Trying to get out of it. He’s debating between telling them he stepped on a land mine and blew off his leg or food poisoning. I pointed out that the land mine route might not be the best as it would require cutting off his leg at least by Christmas, but he said it was worth it. . . How can you have never heard of Easter dinner? Did you never go home for it?”

“Well, yeah. But just to get my Easter candy.”

* Kinder Surprise is like Cracker Jack. Except different.

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Please note the following is an amalgam of IM, spoken conversation and my imagination.

Nicole: For the Day 2 class I had three Spaniards and three Germans.
Al: That sounds like the start of a joke.
Nicole: It was all really good. Laughed a lot. They were all really funny.
Al: Even the Germans??
Nicole: Especially the Germans.
Al: DON’T MENTION THE WAR
Nicole: I didn’t notice this, but the last woman who did her presentation did. She speaks English with a North American accent because of one her parents. All the people from Spain used PowerPoint and did fun topics like ‘How to make Sangria’. All the Germans used the flip paper and did really dry work topics.
Al: Ah.
Nicole: But the really funny part was when I invited them to give me feedback about the two days, one of the German women said—
AL: ZHIS IS NOT VERY EFFICIENT!
Nicole: Well, actually. Yes.
AL: You’re kidding.
Nicole: No, I had ended the first day at 2 and she thought it would have been a better use of her time if I gone on until 5.
Al: It’s just too easy.
Nicole: The Spaniards weren’t fussed.

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Nicole: You realize that our friendship is based on whinging and beer?
Al: That’s not quite fair.
Nicole: You’re right.
Al: Thank you.
Nicole: There is also chocolate.
Al: XXXXX the slag from XXX is here.
Nicole: How come?
Al: Dunno. Maybe she’s looking to have some more extra marital sex.
Nicole: Timely that the health e-mail about getting tested for Syphilis was just sent out then.
Al: She went to her hotel at lunch and changed clothes.
Nicole: Maybe she’s going out tonight.
Al: She dressed down.
Nicole: Or she spilled soup or sperm on her skirt.
Al: Mark is asking why I’m laughing.
Nicole: I dare you to tell him.
Al: I’m going to let it pass.

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