Wednesday, 27 September 1995  9:17AM

I never told you how that party on Saturday night went did I? I arrived elevenish, went in and frantically look around the room for someone I knew. I saw Lisa, grabbed her and made her talk. Then Paige (Matt the host’s girlfriend) came along and we had a stilted chat while I tried to get drunk and didn’t succeed. Simon arrived a bit after eleven, and we stood near the bathroom to be close to the beer bath. Lisa introduced us to The Party Dork, Gaza and then pissed off, leaving me to try to talk to him. It was like eating glass, I had to resort to talking about the football for Christ’s sakes. He asked me who won the game that Simon had just been at, and I couldn’t remember Carlton’s name, so I said “The blue team, you know, they won.” Torture. So I gradually swivelled around until I had my back turned to him and Simon and I could have a laugh at his expense. (Scratch, hissss!) Then Aaron and Nadia arrived, and they were pretty good entertainment. We hung around until 1:30, then Simon and I got a ride into the city with Nadia and Aaron, sampled some McDonalds midnight cuisine, and then Simon and I tried to catch a taxi in the city for what seemed like hours, there was just none about. We walked around to a few different taxi ranks, and saw two people having sex in a little alcove on Russell Street, right next to a church. I didn’t recognise any of the buttocks, so I passed on my way without stopping for a chat. Simon and I eventually cheated two women short of dress and long of hair out of their taxi and left them shivering outside the Hilton while we sped through the night to our homes. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up uncomfortably at 5am, shuffled into bed and didn’t get up until 2pm.

Oh yeah, one other point I wanted to make in response to your letter: it doesn’t matter if you think your life is boring – put it on paper and send it to me! Do you reckon I think my life is interesting? Hell no, I’m aware that stories about people on trams and doughnuts aren’t exactly edge-of-your-seat stuff, but it’s the exchanging of these trivialities that really keep you in touch, because it’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it of course. You could relay to me some anecdote about your boss being a warty toad. Now that would tell me not only that your boss is a warty toad (they’re probably quite nice), but it would also show me your attitude to authority. See what I’m getting at? You don’t have to write about things of earth shattering importance. In fact, if you only wrote about what was really important, it would be less interesting, because you’d only touch on a select band of topics. Tell me about your workmates, about your piss-ups, what your tribe friends are doing. Did Duncan ever buy that house? How’s Tom enjoying teaching? (Mum told me about that.) Tell me what you think of in traffic jams, how the lady in the car next to you was rear-ended while doing her make-up and had to get the paramedics to remove the lipstick that got jammed up her nose. See what I’m getting at? Try thinking of it as a diary of sorts.

And anyway, it really is time to put this monster letter to bed. I’m sending it today. I think I held it back originally to make sure you’d be in your new home, and it wouldn’t end up in the dead letter office. Oh well, I bet you don’t get many twenty-three page, ten thousand word letters eh? Nor would you want to.

So in conclusion, happy housewarming, happy re-decoration, and happy whatever.

See ya.

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