If I was starting to forget what it is like to be very hungover, today has been an ample recap. I'm really not feeling too hot. And I'm pretty sure I'm not looking too great either, in a thick navy wool socks and white Birkenstock sandals combo; jeans; a thermal top covered in small pictures of woodland items including toadtools, thistles and squirrels; a fantastic cardigan with retro puffed sleeves knitted by my granny before I was born; topped off with no make-up, broken glasses and a scraggly ponytail. That said, when one is properly Hungover, such things as appearance are irrelevant: all that matters is getting through the day without one's head exploding. I met Nessa in the Kennington Park cafe this morning, and we ate a lot of carbs, which helped - but it's now nearly 7pm and I'm still a little shaky.
Last night I went to my friend David's 'First Weekend' (website under construction at time of writing). He is an outstanding chef and, things being what they are, it was brilliant to be able to get dressed up on a Saturday night, head out and meet a nice bunch of new faces while consuming a spectacular selection of the finest "aggressively seasonal" food and wines. We had squid and ceps and prawns as finger food, and two starters, one of which (the crab) was perhaps the highlight of my weekend, a beautifully inventive lamb main course, slightly scarily-scented cheeses, ice cream with almond pesto followed by phallic vanilla biscuits dipped into molten chocolate. By the meal's conclusion, I was starting to regret my outfit choice of a bold horizontally striped dress.
It's been a long time since I've been to an event of this sort without a wingman or wingwoman of any kind, but I think I held up under the harsh anglepoise of nine strangers' first impressions and have been poked on Facebook more than once since my return home, so I'll take that as a compliment. It's always interesting to see how one presents oneself in that kind of situation, since it is about as much of a blank canvas as life ever provides these days. I seem to be fairly confident, which I knew before, but also older and wiser than I expected; a surprisingly authoritative-sounding expert on modern celebrity culture; more accurate about the number of Britons who voted in the last general election than I was made to feel; more blunt than some, fractionally more tolerant of alcohol consumption than others; more internet savvy, more in possession of an iPhone; less wealthy, less married, less together in general; less insecure than some, less secure than others; perhaps less self-satisfied than a few, maybe less pigeon-hole-able, hopefully more hopeful and less pessimistic; less trapped, certainly less certain than some, less serious, less knowledgeable about wines and suspended sevenths than others. Which I suppose makes me equally human.
Along with the crab starter, the other contender for Highlight of my Weekend occurred mid this afternoon, when I slotted the drawers of my Ikea chest back onto their runners, having painted the whole thing white three times yesterday, with a final coat of white-mixed-with-a-soupçon-of-brown (as instructed by Sara) and then finished it off today with two applications of Briwax which have given it a lovely dull, matt sheen. Many thanks to My Little Helper Emily, who came to stay on Friday night for TV and chatting and world setting-to-rights, and then strangely and lovelyly volunteered to assist with the painting on Saturday morning.
Now I am satisfying the emotional neediness of my hangover by giving in to every craving, and have been lying on the sofa eating Penguins, drinking milk and taking a trip down Aural Memory Lane by listening to the favourite pieces my choir has sung over the past few years, singing along in a rusty alto to the certain joy of my above and below neighbours, although I feel like the saxophone habits of the latter and the stentorian bedroom antics of the former mean that I can justifiably get away with murdering Bach cantatas and The Dream of Gerontius for a while longer. Next: last night's X Factor.
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