This weekend was the ‘Party to End All Parties’, at the soon-to-be-vacated Suite.

I had originally planned to go to this on the Saturday only, but a bit of schedule-squishing allowed me to find time to go to the Friday evening as well, albeit not drinking, and I was glad I did because it was a good fun evening involving several people I would otherwise not have seen.

On Saturday afternoon I found part of the party on Midsummer Common, where I briefly bruised my fingers on juggling clubs and then got inveigled into a game of three-way chess, which is very silly. Then, after detouring via jaylett's barbecue, back to the Suite for the Saturday evening stretch of the party, at which I more than made up for my sobriety the previous evening. I seem to have a mental blind spot regarding large wine glasses; I tend to think that if I've only had (say) three glasses, that surely can't be all that much wine. Oops. I also have a somewhat hazy memory of at least one person taking some things I said or did the wrong way, so when I go to the Calling tomorrow I fear one of my mission goals will be to make sure everyone I like is still talking to me. I'm probably being unduly pessimistic there, but I'd prefer to be sure.

I had been hoping that the Party would fail in its stated mission of ending all parties, but when I got up on Sunday morning I suddenly wasn't so sure it would be a bad thing, because I had the kind of hangover that makes phrases like ‘never drink again’ spring rapidly to mind, along with ‘owowowow’ and ‘oh my god what did I do last night?’. The hangover itself vanished quite suddenly in mid-afternoon, to my great relief, and it seems likely that I won't in fact let it stop me drinking forever (it wasn't the worst hangover I've ever had, although it was probably in the top ten), but I might nonetheless avoid booze for a few days at least…

Also during my busy weekend I drove lzz, a friend of hers and drswirly to Emmaus for random shopping. I came back with a big pile of books which is making me a little worried that a shelving problem might be looming in my near future. My lounge has little remaining space for new bookcases, the existing ones are nearly full, and I fear my book collection might have to overflow into the study soon.

During this trip I managed to buy two copies of the same book by mistake: I saw one copy on a shelf, debated whether or not to buy it, and eventually decided yes and added it to my pile. Fifteen minutes later I spotted another copy – same edition – on a different but nearby shelf, and I assumed that it must be the copy I'd seen the first time, that I must have forgotten precisely which shelf I'd seen it on, and that when I debated whether or not to buy it fifteen minutes earlier I must have decided no. Having made these three wrong assumptions, I then decided I'd changed my mind and would buy it after all, so I added it to my pile. Imagine how silly I felt when I unpacked my bag of books at home and found two copies of it, particularly since (as was required by the nature of the error) it wasn't even a book I'd been entirely sure I really wanted! Oh well, it's fodder for my giveaway books pile…