On hangovers and heat

Normally, New Year's Day would see me crawl out of bed in the early afternoon nursing a hangover of moderate to severe proportions. Not today, however. Today I almost bounced out of bed, at the ungodly hour of 4:15am.

I'd planned to get up at 4:30am, affording me enough time to shower and sort through CDs before being picked up by my erstwhile Breakfast co-host for the week, Camilla Hannan, at 5:30am, but as it was I woke slightly earlier as my sweaty and exhited housemate barrelled through the door on his way from New Year's Eve party A to party B.

I confess to pangs of angst and loneliness that I didn't spend New Year's Eve in my traditional fashion, getting drunk and drugged-up in a club or clubs somewhere surrounded by friends and their friends. This year the plan had been to spend the night with Mike, Darren and others at Blood, Sweat, New Years, at a Brunswick strip club taken over for the night by a rag-tag bunch of queers. The crew behind the night had thrown a similar party earlier in the year, Sweaty Betty, which I'd thoroughly enjoyed; but sadly it was not to be.

After an hour or so at my one and only party for the night (a subdued but enjoyable gathering thrown by my girlfriend Lisa on a rooftop in East Melbourne, which provided a superb view of the 9:15pm fireworks) I walked home through the hot and oppressive night and went to bed. It was still almost 40 degrees when I went to bed, and I slept restlessly, woken by the sound of fireworks at midnight, and shortly thereafter by a short flurry of text messages bearing greetings and salutations.

Still, since I didn't get trashed, at least I was in a good state to co-host Summer Breakfast on 3RRR this morning: three hours of music interspersed with news and gentle banter. Nothing too strenuous: the theory being, after all, that anyone listening to us this morning was probably coming down from partying hard the night before, or slowly crawling out of a sweat-soaked bed to face the heat of the day.

It was already 30 degrees when Camilla and I got to the station, and it's even hotter now. As I write this, I can feel beads ofsweat slowly trickling down my ribs.I think I'll need to put a towel on this chair soon. I also think I'm going to have to purchase a portable air conditioner soon, if summer in this flat of mine is to become vaguely tolerable.

I know, air-con is bad for the environment; but heat prostation is bad for me - especially on a day like this, when I actually need to be productive, prior to returning to work tomorrow, after 10 days off. One day to put the paper to bed instead of the usual two: and then immediately afterwards a flurry of writing and design in order to finish work on the 64 page summer special magazine we're publishing this month also: what fun!

But enough rambling.

Happy new year, dear reader! Wherever you were and whatever you did last night, I hope you had a wonderful evening; and may 2008 brings you inspiration, passion, surmountable challenges, love, delight, satisfaction, rewards and richly memorable experiences. Cheers!