Posts Tagged → Gin
How to not, not embarass ones’self.
When I began editing On Dit with Steph and Clare, they began to hear some of my drinking tales and tragic romantic misadventures upon our time bonding together in the office at On Dit. It was quickly decided that I should write a regular column entitled ‘Social Fumblings’, to publish not so just the terrible things I end up doing, but the comically self-deprecating way I manage to spin these tales.
The tale of my shaming of On Dit at the 2009 Express Media Conference begins thus…
The first day of the Student Media Conference was drawing to a close and we were descending on the scrappy remains of the catered ham & cheese sandwiches when Zoe Barrow (the amazing young woman who organized the conference) announced that there was a friend-of-a-friend’s house party that night which we were all invited to. Being somewhat partial to the odd house party I quickly scribbled our contact details down and scarpered off to the nearest Liquor Land Express and purchased the cheapest bottle of nondescript Gin my $100 per diem would fund.
A few G & Ts and Black Russians on the hostel roof and it began to dawn on Clare and Steph, who had never seen me drunk in the flesh, just how rowdy I tend to get on the sauce. Nevertheless they shrugged my slightly increased verbosity off and we sauntered back to our dorm for a nap. Not being very tired, while the girls napped I drank Gin on my top bunk and tried halfheartedly to flirt with the German girl in our room in my very broken German – this has since been dubbed my “C game” (versus “A game”).
Cue several hours later to house party – a small single story cottage just on Brunswick Street. Student types milling about with punch in the kitchen, the few smokers milling outside in the fairy-lit backyard strewn with retro couches and picnic rugs. I sat down with the editors of Vertigo, a Sydney based paper, and soon began to put away G & Ts and Black Russians at a prodigious pace. Slowly, my mind fades to black.
What follows was pieced together from various accounts from my po’ faced co-editors and other Conference panellists, with somewhat good reason for said reactions.
Two-thirds of a bottle of Gin and who knows how many Black Russians down in just under 2 hours and I emerged from house announcing loudly to Steph how ‘some nice people in the kitchen gave me shots!’ Soon I began to swap scarves with Steph. This is a bad sign, scarf-swapping drunk. The last time I was this drunk I woke up with the make-up of a single-mother smeared on my face, narrowly avoiding a fight with a man in a taxi rank on Frome Rd.
Back to Melbourne, two and a bit hours into the party and I am shit-faced drunk, belligerently voicing my opinions on matters that aren’t even being discussed to pretty much anyone in earshot, as I try to pair up my co-editors with any male in sight. ‘This is all you need’ I slur, motioning with my hands to the space between Steph’s head and waist. The decision is made to leave and I am walked out to the street t get a cab. We stop by a MacDonald’s and I demand a cheeseburger and try to walk into traffic to hail a cab. Tully, panellist and former editor of Farrago saves me from being hit by traffic and we taxi is back to our hostel.
My next clear memory is sitting in the communal meal room. Clare, Steph and Tully are engaged in an in depth conversation about something important. I have no idea what they are talking about, being very busy using all of my willpower to not pass out on the table. Everyone is aware of this. I announce that I am going to the toilet, politely refusing any assistance getting there. I get halfway there and fall into the wall and proceed to grind my shoulder along the wall the rest of the way to the toilet. I am very impressed. Steph and Clare are not. I return to the table and announce that I am going to bed, Steph making the executive decision to abandon the conversation and escort me lest I get myself into any more trouble.
Still legless, I swipe my access card through the magnetic reader a dozen or so times before realizing Steph has opened it for me. How I got up on my bunk I have no idea, beyond my ability to pull out some semblance of motor function when necessity dictates.
I wake up in my bed feeling a little foggy-headed but relatively not hung-over. I am naked and all of my earthly possessions are in a mountain in the middle of the room. Steph and Clare look at me with scornful eyes. All I can think is how surprisingly handsomely I’ve managed to pull up. This is because I am still drunk.
Student Media Conference, bless you.