PUT DOWN THE GLASS

I don't consider myself much of a drinker, e.g. I don't drink that often. But last week I drank almost every single night. It's not like I'm slugging down half a bottle of bourbon, but I have been drinking my half of a bottle of wine. With the exception of Friday night when I took a break, stayed home and went to bed at 9pm I drank straight through the weekend.

And by yesterday morning I had one of those hangovers that you don't really feel until you spend prolonged time in the vertical position. Despite eating a meal before I went to the Extreme Winetasting, now called the Irregular Winetasting, I was quite drunk when I got home and quite ill when I woke up yesterday morning. And dumbass that I am I went out having washed the sheets but not made up the bed so I had to do that with a buzz on when I returned home Saturday night.

I crawled in bed and turned on Saturday night live comprehended that Paris Hilton was hosting - what the hell? - and promptly passed out. Woke up at 4:30 and ate some Excedrin and went back to sleep until 9:17 am when the phone rang. Ow! I got up and fed the cats and then rested. I got up and ate a little something and then rested. I got up and got out a bag to carry stuff to the superbowl party at Rs. and then rested again.

I rested until about 1pm when I got in the shower and then I had to rest from the exertion of standing upright in my slippery shower with my eyes closed and head tilted back while rinsing the soap from my hair. Dizzy! I ate some more aspirin and downed a litre of water and got in the car to go. I was so nauseated I had to mouth breathe all the way there.

The first thing I did on arrival was drink a beer and ding! I was back in the saddle again. After the second beer I was downright jolly and after the third I was in what has become my mildly buzzed reality. There was lots of good food, but I didn't eat that much because I was so aware of all the calories in beer, plus I had been put to work chopping and once I touch food I no longer want to eat it. Lucky for me I didn't make the guacamole so that was still appealing.

There were people I had met before when I was dating R. and once again I mused over the fact that they seem a LOT older than me. I always feel like I'm partying with my parents and their friends. I mean R. is older than me too, but I don't think of him that way. But maybe he was adapting to me. All of the women were wearing frosted lipstick and had that over processed blond hair. Like if you looked at a high school year book from 1973, how the "hot" chicks used to wear their hair and make up.

But you know I'd had three beers so I was golden retriever friendly. Then the tequila bar opened. Lots of good tequilas - Don Julio, Casa Noble, the expensive Cuervo and something that had a leather and leopard skin carrying case, Tres Hermanas maybe? I tried them all passing around a shot glass with Marvin and Adi. When tequila is really good I don't get so much drunk as drugged. I moved quickly onto water as my head started to pound coinciding with the end of the game.

Speaking of the game it was kind of boring. Big defense games are snorers, but usually the festivities around the superbowl are pretty fun. This year when they opened with the deaf and blind kids singing and signing I knew it was going to be pretty grim. I fully expected Up With People to perform at halftime and Paul McCartney in a bad t-shirt singing Hey Jude wasn't that far off. Though I bet if you were there it was pretty cool. Still it wasn't ZZ Top or Kid Rock or Lynard Skynard. The commercials were pretty blech too.

So it was good that I had a buzz on for most of the game otherwise I think I might've taken a nap. It wasn't until I was talking to Adi about a story that I'm working on and he looked at me and said, "Are you sober enough to hear me?" that I wondered if I had been staggering around all day and people were just pretending not to notice, or if he's one of those people who watches how much other people drink. I was watching what Marvin was drinking because he was mixing and I'm always kind of in awe of people who can do that without throwing up.

I was sober enough to stare into Adi's gorgeous brown eyes and I still remember the very salient point that he made which totally changed the way I'm thinking about this particular character and story and now it's back to the drawing board. And I helped clean up and didn't break anything. So I don't think I was "drunk girl" at the party, though I was definitely happily buzzed girl.

This morning I was foggy in the head girl who blew off working out and taking a shower in order to sleep until the very last minute before leaving for work in pretty much the same clothes she wore yesterday.

This week I'm not making any plans - other than to put down the glass.