The Taste of Defeat

Pursuant to Point 8 of yesterday's confession, my head hurts.

Friday afternoon work beers (we have a sprawling team meeting at about 3.30 with a carton of beer) turned into after work farewell pints, which turned into a fully-fledge carouse of wild and reckless abandon.

Not quite.

Laundy with Charlie, as is our habit. Charlie and I are those guys at the Laundry. Terrible, really. Saw Renee and Mingo from The Don't Lies there, trying to collect money from their gig last week. We met them last week after the played (and they ROCK) and I may have made a totally amusing idiot of myself pretending to be Joey Jeremiah and asking Renee out for a soda. Apparently I am 'radly funny' but got the preemptive 'friendship' speech. What can you say about that? Thing about the friendship speech, like the very similar "It's not you, it's me" speech, is that it really is about you ... if you have that awesome zinging (is that a word?) attraction, none of that technical stuff matters, you work across the inconveniences. Which is probably dumb, but you know what I mean. I'm not saying it's good, just saying. See Fits' Confessions for proof of the power of zinging attraction.

Ah well, the The Don't Lies are cool, you should totally check them out.

And this is what happens when I drink too much ... introspection. Not actually angsty. Feel I should say that, because I seem to be developing a reputation for angst. Deserved, probably, but you know, it's a creative force that when properly harnassed is quite productive.

OK, where was I?
Ah, Laundry.

So Charles and I left the Laundry to head to the Rochester (for Panic), and just up the road ran into a couple of girls coming out of the Old Bar. Charlie said something that I assume was witty, because they followed us to Panic.

Things get blurry from here. To be honest, things were already blurry, I was just trying to sound cool, yeah? I don't actually remember riding (yes, riding) to the Laundry from work at all.

I dance.

I love Panic. I love to dance. I am a particular fan of dancing to the Smiths because you can't ... they capture the insipid 'Indie' love like nothing else and I find it endlessly amusing.

Anyway.

More blur. Somewhere we have Sambucca shots. I think.

I follow Charlie to A Bar Called Barry. Charlie is following one of the girls we met. I don't know why they are going to Barry. The place sucks. The music is terrible. I can't dance to it. The crowd is ... I don't know what the crowd is, to be honest.

But that's just the kind-of friend I am. I give and give. If you want to follow a girl to a bad bar, then I am your wingman. I am the Goose to your Maverick. I am Chewbacca to your Han Solo, Meg White to your Jack White. I am, like, totally there for you. I will even run interference on the girl's friend engaging in much witty repartee and banter* and ensuring that you can pash the girl without having to worry about the friend getting antsy.

I even had to pay the cover charge for him. See? Giving.

The girl on the door made us go across the road to get some water. I only just remembered that.

I lose Charlie. He heads off with the girl.

Charlie loses his bag. Leaves it in the cab. With his music, and honours stuff, and you know ... life in it. Not good.

I lose my dignity. Consumed a Defeat Kebab on the way home ... defeat because I mean, it's a too drunk kebab at 3am in the morning going home alone because your friend picked up. I get mine with extra garlic sauce, because I like to really savour and enjoy my defeat. And there's nothing like waking up without enough sleep and that awful awful too drunk hungover extra garlic taste in your mouth.

The taste of defeat.

No one's kissing me this morning. See Point 6 of yesterday's confession.


* There's is no way I was witty by this stage of the evening. Just so you know. But you probably guessed.