This week I demonstrated my unswerving loyalty to the god of Work by:

1. Working from 9am till 11.30pm on Wednesday
2. Working from 9am till 4am on Thursday, and then starting at 7.30am on the same day and working till 5pm.

There's something romantic about sitting alone in the office, working into the wee hours of the morning. The soft glow of the screen. The gentle stroking of the keyboard. The snugly-fitting curves of the mouse. I think I'm in love.
Leaving the office for home, the streets are calm and serene. Bits of paper and empty cans waft up and down the pavement like restless spirits. Taxis scurry cockroach-like over sleepy roads. The street lamps wait longingly for dawn to return. I collapse in bed fully-clothed.
Only a minute seems to pass when my phone rings. I open my bloodshot eyes, the harsh sunlight blinding me. I pick up.
"Hello?" I answer.
"Hi Aidan. Are you going to be in the office at 7.30?"
"Umm.....yup. I'll be there soon."
She hangs up. I check the time.
7.15.
Shit.


I had a dream the other night I was having a coffee with two friends on the Harbour Bridge. I don't even know who those two people were, but in the dream they were my friends. There were no cars, no sign of anyone except the three of us seated around a small coffee table in the middle of the road.
We started talking, and as we sat there I could see in the distance a white wall of fog approaching. Soon the fog was upon us, and the faces of my friends became fainter and fainter, fading away until all I could hear were their voices. Finally, even their voices were drowned out by the thick enveloping haze and there was nothing left but a blank slate, like some omniscient being had come along and smitten us with a giant eraser.

Last Saturday was quite eventful. It started out as a night out for a friend's birthday, and ended up with me coming home at 4am, exhausted and smelling of vomit.

It was Amy's birthday, so I joined her and her friends for a night out. We had a nice, cultured faux-French meal at The Little Snail in Pyrmont, which, surprise surprise, is famous for serving snails. Everytime I hear of snails, I think back to when I was a kid, and how I used to go out into the backyard and stomp on any snails I could find when they appeared after the rain stopped. And then one day, as I was stepping on a snail and heard the crack of it's little shell and it's green blood oozing out from beneath my shoe, I felt a strong and sudden revulsion - I was disgusted at myself for being so cruel, and disgusted by the sight of the deceased snail in all it's slime. From then on I wanted nothing to do with snails.
So instead of ordering snails for the entree, I chose an exotic dish called 'penne pasta with tomato, basil and bocconcini'. Very exciting. This was redeemed by the kangaroo steak in plum sauce that followed, and topped off by the honey and vanilla cheesecake at the end. Yum.

Stomaches filled with food, we bundled into our cars and drove to the city, where we met in a karaoke room. Also there to greet us cordially was a large stash of alcohol. Uh-oh.
The first bottle to be opened was the Cointreau. Everyone was poured a shot of it, and then, since most of us hadn't had it before, we were instructed to 'gargle, swallow and breathe'. After downing my shot (god it tasted foul), I promptly went red as a tomato and retired into a quiet corner of the room, never to be heard of again.
The rest of the night consisted of drinking games (I'll play but I'll just drink juice), more drinking (nono, I'm good - I've had heaps already), and general drunken behaviour (look seriously, stop trying to kiss me, I'm not gay). Some of the girls started crying for no particular reason, people sang wildly out-of-tune, and one guy was jumping on the seats like a gorilla.
I find people - well, people I know - fascinating when they're drunk. They become vulnerable, uninhibited, exposed. They reveal things that normally reside in some hidden chamber of the heart. If you want to know what a person is really like, buy him/her a drink. Don't try it on me though. The only thing you'll discover is what I just ate for dinner.
The night ended up with people lying on the street in their own vomit and me driving half the people home in one of the guys' Tarago. At one stage I even had to carry a girl into her boyfriend's house. I'll never forget the smell of vomit that pervaded everything, and followed me home.

Life is light and loss and small fragments of...salvation?