pirates, curry, poker and awakenings

There are certain inalienable truths to life. Sometimes they are crushing. For a 7 year-old boy, it was learning that he'd never be Indiana Jones, even if he did become a great archaeologist. Which he didn't. For a 30 year-old boy, it's realising that he will never, ever, be as cool as (Captain) Jack Sparrow. Though with a bit of rum, he may be as drunk.

Go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It's awesome.

I returned this morning from stilted children and giant green daschunds to find an invite to a curry this evening. The invite came from an old mate and involved other old mates. And curry. So I accepted. Thank goodness for that. Already on a bit of a rush from the swashbuckling, a catch-up, a few beers, food and longing for less responsible times was in order.

And to be honest, not much had changed. My half-hearted attempt to catch the tube after dinner was disposed of swiftly by the invite to poker and several drinks. So we got back to the flat and searched for cards and scoured the booze cabinets to work out what was drinkable. And I did something I haven't done in a long time. I just mixed up some crazy fucking cocktails. No nose-in-the-air snobby drinking, this was strip-mining a liquor cabinet and desperate-for-mixer drinking and I made some fun shit and we drank a bunch of it and played poker and talked rubbish. When we were students, we would have done the same and slept until noon. One of the people playing had an important interview first thing, another had to pick up his most important client at 715am, one of us had to write a novel and somebody actually worked for a living. So, if you look at it right, we're even better than we used to be. I'll be running in the morning. The only running I did as a student was - wait, nope. None. Never. Well, shinty perhaps, so that's 3 times in seven years.

So it's groovy. The thing is, it wasn't for a bit. I was thinking too much, letting items of little import weigh me down. I was going to cancel my birthday party. Too many people couldn't make it, it was 2 months after my actual birthday, I didn't really deserve a party, I needed to pack - all sorts of self-pitying bollocks. I remembered a time when nothing short of a nuclear bomb would have stopped me throwing a party, cancellations were quickly replaced by luck, happenstance and beautiful women and even the hangovers were fun. I tried to work out what had changed.
Nada.
Zip.
Zero.
Zilch.
Fuck all.
Nothing's changed.
So the party's fucking on, the invites are still going out, the food's going to be awesome (sorted the menu yesterday - genius), the booze will be flowing and there may even be a piñata. Because piñata are cool. And you know it.

I may even give it a theme. At the last minute. Or give everyone a different theme? We did a mediaeval spaceman party once. Surely that can be topped? Theme suggestions in comments.