Bloody ANZAC

I admit it. I am drunk. It's 9:00 and I have attempted to make pasta, which has been a total disaster since I have spilled all the shredded cheese and cut the garlic into big slices rather than crushing it properly. (My goal with fresh garlic is to slice it thinly, like Paul Sorvino does in Goodfellas, with a razor). Anyway, while the pasta boils, I can tell you about the Australians.

Australians are bad. They drink all the time. I was at the Sunburnt Cow, some Australian bar in the depths of Avenue C, drinking to celebrate ANZAC day, which is like Veteran's Day, only it has to do with the Australians and New Zealanders sent to certain death in various wars by the British. Not sporting, exactly, but there you have it. The celebration of ANZAC day involves some sort of coin toss game which everyone circles and shouts and bets money on, and drinking yourself into a coma by noon. I showed up at three with Mary and her boyfriend Joe, thinking this was respectable, and was blotto before the sun when down. I freely admit that I flirted with all sorts of youngish aussie boys and danced rapturously to Come On Eileen. There was some sort of free Fosters-and-meat-pie giveaway, which I managed to convert into various Stoly drinks.

The lowlight of ANZAC is that I got the hiccups. I got the drunken hillbilly bimbo hiccups. Seriously, I couldn't stop. All sex appeal and intelligent conversation dies with hiccups. Instead, people amuse themselves by suggesting cures to you that only get you to do ridiculous things. I drank out of the wrong side of the cup and held my breath and swallowed. At one point, Mary and three random strangers shouted at me, in order to scare the hiccups away. If there was an old wife there, and she had a cure, we would have tried it. My only consolation is that I was amusing my friends greatly.

Eventually, the hiccups went away, and I even managed to get into an intelligent conversation about the L-Word, and why men should watch it. Not, as commonly noted, for the innovative, varied and well-lit sex scenes, but because it portrays an interesting world of women who seem to be doing just fine without men. If pressed, boys, we could do it. It isn't our first preference, but if we have to...

Anyway, the combination of Stoly and hiccups had made me blind stinking drunk by 8. I barely even danced when they played INXS, which, as many know, is the seventh sign. I decided to go home.

Note to drunken pasta makers: be careful how much pasta you put in the water. Otherwise it will overflow and spill pasta everywhere. Then you will attempt to pick up the pasta, only to get burned on the hot stove. The trick is to turn the stove off before gathering up loose pasta. Trust me, you need to know this.

The pasta is ready. It's time for the goings-on at St. Mary Mead. If you know this reference, then you are someone I want to know.