"Pour youself a drink, put on some lipstick and pull yourself together"

G isn't sleeping or eating. She's completely and utterly miserable, and probably only making it worse by forcing herself to hang out with mutual friends and seeing her ex-boyfriend constantly. She refuses to give up pub trivia nights she's been attending for years just because her and her boyfriend broke up. It's certainly not helping her get over him. Especially since they both seem to fragile to inform some of their friends that they're actually broken up and some of them even make jokes assuming they are still together. Awkward. She then goes home and cries herself to sleep. A doesn't know what to do.

She tried dragging G out with herself, J, M and L for Halloween because we all love drunken dress-ups. Even better when it comes with live music. A was in zombie gear, bumming cigarettes with no shame whatsoever and trying to chat up guys for G. Unsurprisingly, G was not interested. She didn't even make an appearance in the mosh pit. Too busy worrying about crushing her faiyr wings. L went home early to study, while M kept conversing with randoms about all her new Ikea furniture. In particular an easel she bought that she thinks is super cool and cheap.

J bumped into 'the one' and his surprisingly attractive girlfriend. Okay, perhaps not surprisingly as 'the one' isn't bad-looking, in fact he's quite good-looking and also has an English accent, it's just that he reeks of desperation. They were acting all coupley and cuddling in a corner but 'the one' was quick to jump up and hug J and spent so much time chatting to her his new girlfriend went to the bar and was gone for about half an hour. 'the one' didn't even seem to notice until J pointed out she thought his girlfriend had cracked the shits. He went to go find her and they left soon after. J then went to go chat to the hot guitarist who had flicked his pick at her after the set, but it turned out he was the designated driver and was taking the rest of the (wasted) band home. He told J to look him up on facebook but she didn't bother. She considered the whole thing a waste of her cat costume.

The next morning was all about rinsing fake blood (from costumes) and real blood (from jumping off the stage) off our skin and eating kebabs. Except for G, who was just moping around the house. A suggested she go drop by footballer's place but the look G gave her suggested she drop dead. Whatever. Nothing makes an ex jealous like an affair with a footballer.

"Prince Charming is a dick, bring on the frogs"

You know thing's are going bad when all the skin around your belly button piercing dies and the piercing falls off and you're left with no hole at all and just weird flaps of skin that things are going bad. Not a hypothetical, just another day in the life of J. But I suppose that's what you get when you're so busy taking care of your alcohol intake and not busy enough to take care of your general health.

Exams are done with and it's time to let loose. Everyone we know is apparently going to Europe for the next 6 months because that's the cool thing to do. Also, everyone we know is pretty much done with school and taking their year off before they enter the 'real' world so I guess they get to do the travel thing. We're stuck at home with our textbooks and internships applications. I guess that's what you get for being a failure...But nothing so much fun as going away parties right?

G is only off for a month, but she's having a blow-out bash before hand anyway. Everyone donned their floral dresses for a hippie themed party complete with magic mushrooms, giant lollipops and Bob Dylan records playing. It may be winter but that doesn't mean we can't wear flowers in our hair. Just that they have to be fake, because nothing real survives this weather. A got too drunk and made out with one of G's boyfriend's best mates that regularly hangs out at their house. Awkward because he wants to take her out for dinner and A wants nothing outside the bedroom. Or the bathroom, as luck may have it. L got too wasted on Pimms and got her kickass hat stolen and she was not pleased. She's been trying to track it down but was unsuccessful. M continued on her too-drunk-to-stand up phase and spent most of the night puking in the street as she stumbled home.

C is leaving for four months...but no one can remember his party. We all trundled off to the suburbs only to drink copious amounts of rum and pass out in the garden. C, true to form, woke up in only his underwear and has no idea where the rest of his clothes went. J woke up in his older brother's bed, but the brother was nowhere to be seen. L was making pancakes in the kitchen and laughing manicly. There was pancake batter all over the floor, which A managed to slip on and end up on her ass, much to the amusement to C's mother. Several of his other friends, who's also been involved in ridiculous drinking games, were half naked and sleeping in the curtains. C has killer parties. V even showed up, on the arm of one of C's friends. Everyone thought she was dating an AFL footballer, but apparently that went down the drain. She's model-good looking so of course A got cut. C thought this was hilarious, until A wasted booze by throwing a glass in V's eyes. Then he kicked V out of his house and licked the alcohol off the floor. A may have helped.

The toxic twins are headed overseas as well although everyone's invite to their going away must have got lost. To be fair A didn't really expect one, and after K screamed at her for no apparent reason, J figured her invitation was revoked. B certainly didn't bother to check up on it. L was surprised she didn't get an invitation, but then she should no better than to take more than a minute to reply to a K text.

A and V may be sleeping together again. J dropped by A and G's place and could have sworn she saw him sneaking out. But she was slightly distracted. A shirtless footballer was walking past. She's not impressed with this development because she hardly needs to deal with A whining on and on about how much she hates V only for her to wind up in bed with him for 4 nights in a row.

Druggie dropped by J's place to hang out and smoke but when J told her she'd given up the drugs and thought Druggie should too, Druggie wasn't particularly pleased. So she headed home to her increasingly possessive boyfriend.

And now? Tapas and wine. Lots of wine.

"That would be the real tragedy. Ignore the coffin. There's a single 35 year old woman walking behind it!"

"Calm down, it's not like we had sex"
A and V are getting into fights on the street as per usual, with her refusing to be impressed by his new 'top DJ' status nor the blonde busty girls with their arms around his neck.

J's always in trouble. She somehow found herself on a date with a nerd who took her home the other night after she passed out on the floor of a club. The bouncers thought she'd taken drugs but none of that now that Druggie has moved to the outer suburbs and just hangs out at the park smoking weed and eating Nandos.

A and L spent a night hooning around in one of their uni friends' cars, because they were too drunk to even attempt driving. Lucky he was a psycho driver with a lead foot and no desire no down any beers. They attended 3 separate parties, including the 21st of a girl who may be even more of a train wreck than A, and clearly had eyes on their (older) friend. A thought it was a laugh drinking all the birthday punch. L thought it was amusing to down 12 jelly shots in ten minutes.

Footballer is pissing everyone off by actually scoring goals (and probably Brownlow votes) but won't pick up his phone to hang out with anyone. Well, yeah, we only want him to get us good seats...which we'd then sell because everyone knows the standing room is better anyway.

Happy ANZAC Day people!

"Does the noise in my head bother you?"

Smile like you're freezing your toes off. The chill (otherwise known as winter) has arrived which has us all huddled in printed scarfs and long cardis, sipping hot chocolate while we cheer our team on at the footy.

Easter weekend is always a bit of fun, even if when you work in retail there is always people everywhere because what most people don't seem to realise is that Easter comes second only to Boxing Day when it comes to sales figures. But at least we earn public holiday rates and don't have to pay heating bills.

It's a well regarded fact (on this blog anyway) that single people are more fun than married people. A's belief was confirmed when her best work friend, who was previously single and always up for a drink and a good time, started dating her boss' housemate. She isn't the bad type of couple person. She hasn't disappeared like H, or gone crazy like K and she doesn't talk non-stop about her boyfriend like B, but she's just not the same. Those crazy alcoholic nights spent kissing random boys, dancing like a maniac and doing body shots? So over.

Luckily A took a boozy boat ride with L and a few of their uni friends. L spent the first hour getting hit on by a first year in a gorilla costume just because she let him borrow her iphone. At least she got a few free drinks, but he wouldn't even play Draw Free with her! She was on the lookout for the hot older Canadian in her course but couldn't find him and just settled for a super attractive old Aussie. Sadly he turned out to be completely boring and unable to talk about anything other then law and Justice Toohey. Not even one of the more interesting judges. Her night was still better than A's, who struck out with a hot guy whose wig she was stroking when his girlfriend showed up. A then spent 2 hours talking a suicidal girl out of jumping over the edge of the boat.

Footballer is back on our TV's playing footy. He's also back texting A and G that he just wants to pop by for a 'chat'. Yeah, right. A might go for it, but G won't let him within 100m of their place. Which puts him in his place.

M is enjoying the single life and has a crush on one of her new co-workers. You would think she would have learnt her lesson from the last co-worker she dated but obviously not. She hasn't spoken to E since they broke up. He's still overseas and A, J and C are wondering whether it's okay to call him or whether they should follow M's lead. M's obviously becoming a 'couple' person, jumping from relationship to relationship. After hanging out with her new crush a couple of days ago he went to kiss her on the cheek and she kissed him on the lips. It was awkward at the time, but later he asked her out.

J's in trouble as usual. She suspects one of her uni friends is hot for her which isn't good because she isn't hot for him. He's only a few years older but has a son and lives with him and his ex. She also bumped into the best sex she's ever had, a guy she had sex with in a park once. She's also slept with two of his friends but didn't think he knew that. She had sex with him in an alley, then realised he was getting a call from one of his friends that he'd had sex with. He revealed he knew, and that as soon as J had left the friend had called him to tell him. J didn't realise guys were so gossipy. But of course they are. Now the best sex she's ever had wants a threesome. J would be up for it, except the guy expects her to treat him like a rock star. He does sing in a band, but Steven Tyler he's not. She's no groupie.

And yeah, we had roast beef and roast pork on Good Friday. What of it?

"Blast off, he try to shoot you with precision, take your face off"

Yeah, St Paddy's Day is one of our favourite holidays. You didn't expect that?

Covered in green glitter and dancing the night away after a day spend drinking Irish beer is really the way every weekend should be. A, J and M hit the town with C, who's always willing to go out with the girls to a non-rock venue. He, of course, was hit on by several guys, while drunk texting and wearing the best hat of anyone we saw out. J was trying to escape from an old clingy hook-up who was apparently a terrible hook-up. A spotted footballer, her flirty (non-single) neighbour who she hasn't seen since he attempted to have sex with her months ago. She played hard to get, as is her standard, and he bought her drinks all night. Well, he earns better money than anyone else our age. A was trying to get inside information for her Supercoach team. M was supremely bored by all the football talk and danced on the bar with C. J had to leave the bar in order to escape the clingy hook-up and stumbled starved into a noodle shop where she received dumplings that she later threw up in a taxi. She also managed to give her number to the cute DJ, who has already suggested they catch up. A somehow got a large cut and bruise on her arm which C claims she got in a bar fight but M doesn't recall any such thing.

"Chemical Heart"

Footballer seems to have vanished, much to A's disappointment. After dropping his pants and suggesting they have sex several months ago, A hasn't seen him since. It's not exactly that she wants to have sex with him, but she liked the attention. That and she wants the inside info on who exactly is injured this year from his team so she can work on her fantasy football team. Yeah, A has a nerdy side. Who doesn't?

G swears she's seen footballer in their building and said hi and A can't work out how she hasn't even seem him on the stairs. He's clearly avoiding her and keeping an eye out for him is becoming A's silent obsession. At least G is getting a laugh out of it.

A was determined not to see dinner date this week, but after heading out for a night with J and M, she bumped into him and had to say hi. She quickly steered away from him but M soon vanished home and J was hooking up with a random bald dude (so not like her) in the corner and A was bored so she ended up going home with him. He offered to cook her french toast for breakfast in the morning, but despite A's (and all of our) love for french toast she made some excuse about having to work early and ran off.

J caught up with Motley Crue again. Yeah, he's kinda dumb and suburban and has no ambitions and blah blah blah. Whatever, she doesn't have to marry him. The important thing is that the sex is consistently good rather than trying your luck with one night stands and discovering the guy can't even manage to get a condom on. He did want to go out for lunch the following day and discuss his ex-girlfriend who has recently deleted him off facebook and gotten his best mate's little brother addicted to ice. J managed to survive it this time but she's not sure she can go through that again. Can't he just shut up?

Druggie seems to be going through more benders more often and J is getting increasingly worried about her and her quest to have a baby. J has always been a casual pot smoker and has occasionally experimented with other drugs but she isn't really a user. these days Druggie is turning her off anything harder than caffeine. J got a call over the weekend from Druggie's boyfriend begging J to help out because Druggie was blitzed out on ice and cutting herself and wouldn't listen to anything he said. J dragged her off to hospital but it was a very scary couple of hours. Afterwards J tried to talk to Druggie about cutting back but she wouldn't hear any of it and demanded J drop her off at her dealer's place. J is considering contacting Druggie's parents and younger sister to help out, but she doesn't want to be the dobber who goes running to mum and dad when there's trouble. But it isn't like her boyfriend is being particularly helpful...

"I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal"

V is currently on some kind of schoolies/toolies trip up on the northern beaches and seems to be having a fun time 'having sex on the roof with an 11 out of 10 girl' if his facebook statuses are anything to go by. A couldn't care less. She's playing Girls Gone Wild with J with the pair of them laughing manicly and running around the city topless. J refuses to answer the calls of either Motley Crue and Wow who both want to date her. What happened to casual sex? Don't these guys know J at all? Clearly not.

Post exams A and J love cutting loose, and they usually manage to just as good of a job as arrogant good-looking guys like V. It doesn't matter that they were hardly in class, they deserve a break dammit! J is usually found practically having sex against cliub walls or on movie theatre floors and this has been no exception. A few teenage girls got a little more than they baragined for when they went to see an afternoon session of I Don't Know How She Does It. No, we don't know how J does it either. J did actually return to the movies for real later with L for The Inbetweeners movie which is of course, an instant classic. It's just a pity B doesn't hang with us anymore, she loved all the British TV. Meanwhile A is trying to track down her flirty neighbour footballer who she hasn't seen since he dropped his pants in front of her and asked for sex. A turned him down that time but after an unsatisfying night with a guy who left lipstick and hairspray all over her pillow she decided she needed a real man. And who better than a footy star? Pity he's nowhere to be found, except on the occasions he says hey to G. Perhaps he is avoiding A?

M and E are back on better terms after M took herself off on an unapproved holiday. They're back to being the pin-up couple and looking sickingly cute everywhere they go. M awkwardly bumped into her ex co-worker by the photocopy machine the other day and he suggested they catch up over lunch one day. M doesn't want to admit she already has a new boyfriend. time for a new job perhaps? The internet nerd gag is getting a bit boring of late, and she's been talking about going back to school to study dance and/or teaching. Now it the time.

"I'm a little bit shy. A bit strange and a little bit manic"

It was the calm before the storm. A deceivingly quiet week. We were busy helping our guy friends deal with their unrequited love issues (boys can be so clueless), gossiping about J's ex Motley Crue's new haircut- that is, the no hair shave which makes his nose look massive- and listening to the bands part of the Big Day Out/Soundwave/Falls/other assorted music festival line-ups. Drinks were casual pina coladas with relatively low alcohol content. Jeans were so tight they required zippers to get them over our feet. Even L was making an appearence, enjoying short study breaks with beer. But G and A's house is just never that quiet.

Someone's always knocking on their door at 3am. This week it was neighbour footballer who was getting so rowdy and rude A had to let him in before someone called the cops. He then promptly took off his pants and told A it was time to fuck. Clearly he was on something. A lost sleep trying to get his pants back on and copped an eyefull that the gossip mags would pay good money for. She finally got rid of him but can't help but get more attracted to him the more of an asshole he acts. It probably doesn't help that pictures have been surfacing on facebook of V and a particularly attractive blonde who is so clearly not A who's rocking green hair these days.

J started getting abusive calls from someone who claimed she was fucking her husband. No doubt the jealous wife of J's older married lover. She can't deal with that kind of baggage which lead her right back to Motley Crue's arms. A one-night-stand later and she remembered why they're no longer together. He's dumb, unambitious, suburban, acts like a little kid...and now bald.

J and A dragged out a boyfriendless M and a Burberry suit wearing C for a night on the down. C showed why there's so many suspicions he bats for the other team when he kissed a guy and felt him up through tight red jeans. It was M's idea though- the guy was with E's evil ex and M wanted any opportunity to upset her. It was set up to a night of questioning sexuality and and androgyny. J shagged a glam rocker on her new shag rug. Glam rocker's hair was bigger than Jon Bon Jovi's on his best day and was wearing more make-up than was seen on the Brownlow medal blue carpet. However J needed someone who was nothing like her married square or bald Motely Crue- this guy had a genital piercing and fit the bill perfectly. A and M set many a man's tongue wagging with tequila body shots and dancing together on the bar- until M's boring boyfriend showed up and had a fit and she had to go home. A then dodged the other lesbians to hook up with a cute guy in a suit- because what law student can resist a guy who fills out a 3-piece so perfectly? No we will not grab somebody sexy and tell them hey but when Guns N' Roses' Nightrain comes on shit will go down and the cops will show up. Yeah, it's so fun getting kicked out of slubs and your alcohol taken away. Then you realise you can buy cheap wine and hang out with your new friends in the park like you used to do in high school. Except with more sex and better clothes.

"Tired? Stressed? You'll feel better on Swisse."

It's been a year since H vanished from cyberspace and phone conversations and reality. Last week however she got herself out of the rabbithole and made a new facebook. Her new friend list has all the usual suspects, L, B and K as well as a bunch or random grunge rockers and gorgeous strippers and drag queens as well as pretty much the entire graduating class of her high school. But no A. And no J. Talk about insulting. It's hard to believe that, despite everything that's happened, H would rather talk to the toxic twins than A and J. H was always the one that really hated K, even before everyone else did, and only put up with her to spend time with B even though her and B were never that close. And ever since it became obvious that L was still spending time with H, the once fab four were all hoping to get together. Except clearly H wasn't hoping. It seems any hope of getting those four in a room again...well, let's just say the ship has sailed.

Meanwhile A is starting to get concerned about her new housemate G and her boyfriend. G didn't bother attending his birthday party, has plans for New Year's Eve that don't involve him and is currently planning an overseas trip...also without him. While it's true that G and her boyfriend have been together for almost 5 years and are long past the poing where they have to see each other every day and they are completely comfortable with each other, it's still a slight concern. Especially when A got home from a booze session last week to find their flirty neighbour footballer spleeping on their couch. Apparently he lost his keys. Hmmmm, one smells a rat. Then again G was far from pleased on wake up on Monday morning to get ready for work and discover V making himself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. And it was G's cereal too!

J is still seeing her married man, although she is also seeing a wannabe rock star with too many tattoos and glitter on his face. M is still with her boyfriend as well, but that doesn't seem to be going as well as she'd hoped and she's so desperate for a break she took off for a random weeklong holiday to Perth. Well, at least the weather's good on that side of the country.

"But it is always the good swimmers who drown"

It's actually not that difficult to be part of the party scene in Melbourne and avoid AFL footballers. They all tend to freqent the same places with the same sorts of music and the same sorts of women and if you don't go there the only place you see them is in the street, at restaurants and on the footy field. Which is how it should be, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, we leave the WAGing to the women who don't actually like football, because you once things go sour (as they generally do) you can't cheer them on. Or if they don't play for your team you're usually predisposed to hating them. Then there's the fact that footy players tend to be selfish and chauvinistic both in the bedroom and out, and we can't have that. In our experience affairs with footballers tend to be memerable foir all the wrong reasons. Yes they have good bodies but it just isn't worth it.

Of course, sometimes you can't avoid them. Sometimes you live right next door.

A recently moved into an apartment with her friend G who decided she had to move out of home when her boyfriend moved back home, because she was not happy with the parents being part of their relationship. It's a great apartment with one small floor. Their neighbour is a certain young AFL player (who we won't name because that isn't what we do here at French Toast and Failure) and his girlfriend. Generalising again, but footballers treat their girlfriends worse than J treats her boyfriends.

It all started off well and good. Footballer was friendly and nice and invited A and G over for dinner. The girlfriend was mysteriously absent from dinner (apparently she was too 'shy' although when A and G have actually spoken to her she seems normal) but nothing else was particularly odd. Then footballer started texting them regularly on Saturday nights asking them to come to certain 'designated' AFL clubs. They both flat out refused because that's not their scene. They are both trashbag violent drunks, not blonde models who flash their underwear in tight skirts and giggle after 1 cocktail. One late night footballer called G and asked if they could share a taxi home because he'd forgotten the key to the building. G agreed and once they were back at the apartment footballer invited G in. Fairly drunk herself she agreed, if only to fry up a hamburger and make a mess in his kitchen. Footballer had other things on his mind, kissing her and informing her the girlfriend was away for the weekend. G was shocked, reminded him she had a boyfriend she was actually faithful to (except for that one horrible time with Dumbass) and left. They haven't seen a great deal of each other since then, though it hasn't been overly awkward when they have.

A week later footballer called A to complain that his fridge wasn't working and if she was alone could he come up and so she could help him out? How dumb does he think A is? She knows nothing about electrical equipment and doesn't see any need to give him refridgeration advice when no one else was around. She complained of being too busy and called G straight away.

Footballers. Great on the field, trouble off the field. All we know is that footballer is not getting any kind of roomate threeway with A and G. Maybe he should try his luck with J? Only she won't do threeways unless it's with two guys. Or Megan Gale. As it should be.