Lost Weekend

I finally feel up to stringing a few sentences together. I was down in Limerick for Naomi’s going away party. I’m not much of a drinker and she’s never seen me drunk so she was really hoping I would get drunk. Whenever she saw me she was like, “David, why haven’t you got a drink?” To her credit she made this great sangria, which made drinking a lot more fun. Beer tastes like bat urine to me. To Naomi’s glee I did get a little tipsy. Which would explain why I went along with her idea that we should all walk around for miles in a wet field in the dark. And why when I got back at six in the morning I decided that instead of sleep what I really needed was some toast and a few games of pool.

Finally crawled into my sleeping bag at 730.

Woke up at 10.

Had a big greasy fry, Irish style. This means that everything is cooked in fat, burnt to a crisp and accompanied by thick slices of bread. Naomi’s Dad plied me with old school ‘country butter’, which is illegal in the EU according to her mother. But her Dad told me where to get it in Dublin. It’s gonna feel very weird looking for black marker butter. Only in Ireland…

I have this theory about parties. The more people you put together in a conversation the more general and shallow the talk becomes. When I was sitting around the table with a dozen people, we talked about the weather and the roads. When it was just me and another person, the discussion was very personal and intimate. Even when I didn’t really know the person. There’s nowhere to hide your personality when it’s one on one. Needless to say, these moments were my favourite of the night.

In the morning everyone was sitting around in the kitchen, now maybe it was just because I was a lot more sober or that I hadn’t slept much, but it seemed like the witty and vibrant people of the previous night had been replaced by drones whose conversation was so banal that I can’t even remember what was said. I’m not much of a people person. I need my space.

When I got home I said about five words in total. I was wrecked. I knew from prior experience that I had to stay awake until night time otherwise my sleep pattern would be fucked. But as soon as 9pm I was in bed. I was asleep by 9.05. Great weekend. My compliments to my wonderful host and her (very) understanding parents. If I woke and found empty beer cans resting on antique tables and grass tramped all over my carpets, I wouldn’t be quite so relaxed about it.

Oh yeah, Naomi reckons we all drank 44 beer cans and maybe 12 bottles of wine. Seems like a pretty conservative estimate to me.