Yeah, I know I'm a schmuck

Apologies for not posting since before New Year. I know my postings are getting more and more infrequent but there is a good reason - mainly that I've licking my wounds. Plus I've been working full time (yes, I know, shock horror, talk about a major lifestyle adjustment), so I don't have the time I used to have to devote to the blog.

Anyway...

New Year was a major fuck up. I know that fuck ups have been a particular speciality of mine since, like, forever, but I really thought I was on the up. I guess it lulled me into a false sense of security because New Year ended up being a cataclysmic disaster.

OK. My idea of extreme fun isn't ever going to be trying to stay sober in the company of a pack of sharp-edged Fulham fools, but I was all into the 'New Year, New Me' thing. Like, 2006 will be the year that Sara gets it together and this is the first rung of the ladder. I was convinced that if I could get past this then the rest of my life would be an effortless climb to the top, scaling the heights without breaking much of a sweat. Let's face it, I'd just gone through a couple of months of painful cold turkey so how hard could one night be? What a Grade A idiot I proved to be.

Anyway, James and I get to this house in Hampshire where the party is taking place. The usual suspects are already in residence, including Kate (the bitch), a spectre in sky-blue skintight satin. God knows what's on her mind but she's being scarily friendly which kind of freaks me out. In fact, the whole lot of them are being friendly, which makes me think that James has said something in advance. Either that or they've all undergone personality transplants. Who knows?

Not drinking on New Year's Eve turns out to be harder than I anticipated. I cave in and tell myself I'll just have the one... I'll sip it... this one glass will last me all night... oh hell, I've finished it... oh OK then, one more...

By the time pudding arrives I realise that my body isn't the temple to depravity it used to be and that my legendary tolerance is kaput.

You know that moment when it suddenly hits you that you are totally pissed? That you haven't been conversing in a witty fashion and entrancing the other guests with your elegance and style. Instead, you have been laughing too heartily and for a beat too long at comments that were not even intended to be funny, your elbow inexplicably keeps slipping off the edge of the table, and your dress is not only rumpled but soup-stained as well.

I slope off to the loo to try and get my head together. I stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is a 'before' advert for Frizz-Ease, I have red-rimmed panda eyes, a strand of spinach stuck between my front teeth and my nose is flaking. So much for a healthy lifestyle. I looked much better before I got clean - cocaine, my number one top beauty aid.

I'm not quite ready to go back to the table so I head to the kitchen for a glass of water, then go into the sitting room for a bit of quiet time. I'm lounging in what is possibly the most comfortable armchair in the world, smoking a much-needed cigarette, when I hear James' voice in the hallway. I'm about to call out his name when I hear Kate's dulcet tones. I keep quiet - the last thing I want right now is to be in her company. They stop practically outside the sitting room door, Kate goes, James, are you all right sweetie? James is like, shouldn't I be? Kate says, well, I thought maybe you'd be feeling a bit strange, being here without Karen. I mean, Sara's not exactly Karen, is she? No, she's not, James replies. He's about to say something else but Kate interrupts, Look James, I might be out of turn here but I really don't know what you're doing. Why are you wasting your time with someone who you have nothing in common with? James sort of clears his throat and mutters something I don't catch, and Kate continues, look, I realise that you probably need a bit of fun right now, what with the divorce and everything, but you shouldn't lead that poor girl on. A shag's a shag, James, you don't have to make it out to be anything more than it is.

It's at this point that the night turns from being boring but bearable to utterly shit.

I probably should have gone back into the dining room and acted like I hadn't heard a thing. Or maybe I should have stormed into the dining room, thrown a drink over James' head and a punch at Kate's smug nasty fat face, then walked off into the night. Instead, I take the coward's way out and go upstairs to bed without a word to anyone. When James comes in, presumably to find me, I pretend to be asleep. I lie in bed, crying, listening to the cheering downstairs as the clock strikes midnight. I pretend to be asleep when James staggers in and falls into bed beside me hours later. When dawn breaks, I creep downstairs, the rest of the house still sleeping, and call a taxi to pick me up around the corner. Then I have to persuade the reluctant cabbie to drive me all the way to London (which costs me big time, making me even more pissed off).

I spend the entire journey cursing James, cursing myself, and cursing anyone and everyone else I can think of.

Unsurprisingly, I haven't spoken to him since.

Happy 2006, everyone.