The best/only thing to do while growing up in the Hills was to go to house parties. I went to house parties every night of every weekend until I turned 18 and ditched my then-underage friends so I could go out clubbing instead with work people. I have very fond house party memories though.

Opportunities
Anytime anybody’s parents went anywhere ever, we had a house party. However, the best kids to host house parties were those with single mothers who were in the middle of messy divorces and/or distracted by alcoholism. They were too depressed to give a shit about what we did in their backyards, as long as nobody died or got pregnant.

Preparations
We spent every lunch break during grades 9-12 figuring out how we were going to get blasted on the weekend. We’d pool our money and then fight over what we wanted and who could buy it for us.

“Can we get a bottle of Midori?”
“No. Fuck the Midori.”
“We need cigarettes too.”
“Do we have enough for Cruisers?”
“Just steal a bottle of wine from your nanna. She won’t notice. She’s like a hundred and fifty.”

Then we’d organise for somebody’s older brother/sister/cousin/boyfriend or someone with a fake ID to do a bottle shop run for us. If that didn’t work, we simply hung out around the front of Liquor Land and smiled at every guy who walked past until one of them agreed to buy us booze. Sometimes they’d give us a lift to the party too. We were street-smart.

Deceptions
Usually you would tell your mum and dad that you were staying at a girlfriend’s house for a “movie night” or similar. They’d drop you off and you’d walk gingerly up the driveway, trying not to let your Country Road overnight bag full of Stoli’s and Woodstocks rattle. Then they’d collect you the following morning and you would lie on the backseat of the car in the fetal position, reeking of cigarettes and alcohol, complaining that you ate some bad party pies and might have gotten food poisoning and could you please wind down the windows, it’s like a goddamn oven in here and where the hell are my sunglasses?

If the house party occurred at your place while your parents were away, you had to get up early, ignore your raging hangover and attempt to restore everything to its former condition as much as possible. You febreezed the shit out of the couch, stashed garbage bags full of empty liquor bottles under your bed and hoped your dad wouldn’t notice the garden hose had gotten shorter when you tried to make a bong.

Consequences
My highschool friends are now teachers, psychologists, lawyers, nurses, and some do jobs I don’t even really understand. All are functional, well-balanced, tax-paying members of society, and one has even reproduced and is now responsible for the wellbeing of another human being who is still successfully alive at the time of writing. I guess the point is that even if your kid seems like a complete fuck-up, it will probably turn out fine. So just chill out and do your own thing while they binge-drink their way through their interminable adolescence. It’s the Australian way.

Ryan: Nice boots, Skelty. Are you going to a rodeo later?
Me: Shut up.
Ryan: I’m sorry. Seriously, you look really nice tonight….from the ankles up, anyway.

Ryan: You haven’t blogged about me lately.
Me: You need to say more funny things first.
Ryan: Have you not been listening?

Me: Will it be weird if it’s just the two of us at dinner?
Ryan: Nah, that’s cool. You’ll get to experience what it’s like to go on a date with me, except I won’t try and finger you behind the restaurant after we’ve eaten.

Ryan: How was your day?
Me: Eh… I was a bit depressed this morning.
Ryan: Was it because you knew you were going to wear that outfit tonight?

Since I have been experiencing “visual disturbances” lately, I went to a clinic in the city to have a retinal examination today. This involved not wearing make up to work, which made everyone ask if I was alright, then having to hike up a big hill to sit in a waiting room for an hour and a half with a lot of old people who looked like they died some time ago. The lady at the desk made me fill out lots of forms that asked me to estimate how many alcoholic beverages I consume in an average week and other impossible questions, then I waited some more.

A girl called Julia anaesthetised my eyeballs and made my tears yellow, then she poked them to check my eyeball pressure or something. After that, she put the dilating drops in my eyes and led me to a smaller, more crowded waiting room that could have passed for a methadone clinic because everyone there was glassy-eyed and staring at the wall because we could not see properly. An asian surgeon looked at my eyeballs with a magnifying glass, which he accidentally dropped onto my crotch and then went to retrieve and then awkwardly stopped himself. Then a fat lady took photos of my eyeballs and yelled at me for blinking every time the camera flashed. By this stage, I looked like I had taken a lot of pills, except I wasn’t smiling all that much.

The doctor then said I have “very healthy eyes” and dictated a letter to my father using his dictaphone machine, while I looked at myself in a hand mirror. Then he said “if your car won’t start, there’s a problem with its engine. Maybe you just need to take better care of yourself.” And I said, “I do, I love myself.” And he said, “Okay, whatever.” I don’t think he was much of a people-person, because in his office he had 5 pictures of his dogs and 1 picture of his children.



Rosh is my housemate’s friend’s housemate. He likes to pump.

The second time I met him…
Rosh: Hey, babe. *moves in to kiss*
Me: What are you doing?
Rosh: I thought you wanted to make out?
Me: Do you even remember my name?
Rosh: No…
Me: It’s Annik.
Rosh: Well that’s just stupid.

One night at the pub…
Rosh: Do you want to make out later tonight?
Me: No.
Rosh: Okay, just checking.

Optimistic Rosh
Me: What was the best night of your life?
Rosh: I dunno. It could be tonight!

Another night at the pub…
Rosh: Hey, how are you?
Me: Good, yeah.
Rosh: *moves in to kiss*
Me: Wtf are you doing?
Rosh: Shit, sorry, I thought that was a green light.

As we are getting ready to go out, approx 7pm on a Sunday night…
Ryan: Why are you bringing sunnies, man?
Rosh: Just in case I end up in a day club.

Romantic Rosh
Me: How exactly does your brain work?
Rosh: I don’t know. I just fuck chicks.

As we are walking to the Columbian…
Rosh: If any gay guys hit on me tonight, you have to make out with me.
Me: No, I don’t.
Rosh: Okay, just checking.

When I sent him this blog post for proof-reading…
Rosh: Does this mean you have a crush on me?
Me: No.
Rosh: Okay, just checking.

Me: Sometimes you just find yourself in the men’s room at Q Bar at 6am on a Sunday morning and you think, “What am I doing with my life?”… Know what I mean?

Dr Riley: Not really.