Intro to The Sage

Yesterday my best friend Maxine (aka Max, forensic student, glamour loving, always in trouble) had her graduation ball and so I lounged around at home for a bit, watching Olympics closing ceremony, cheering for Britain, writing furiously. Then I met my friend, "The Sage" at the bar for some good ol' fashioned drunkenness.

The Sage (so named for his beyond human ability to be effortlessly smooth and sane even when seriously drunk) is my personal, available -anytime agony aunt. Except, he's uncle. I can't remember how I made decisions before I met him 4 years back! Its nice to have someone sane around you, no?

The Sage is the man who gets drunk first and still beats us all at any booze game (he also gets us all the cabs home). He always knows when the shit's gonna hit the fan and what we should do before that. Wise beyond his 24 years, The Sage is the coolest of the cool...

"Which bag should I buy" (and other questions of a similar nature) is the only question to which I have ever received a blank stare from him, followed by a dull "idunno" . But for that, there's Max.

Celebrating summer, we went for a run at 9.30pm (its already getting dark sooner and I'm dreading the winter). If there's one thing TS is lovingly devoted to, its his daily run. When he can, he drags Max and me with him (otherwise we're the usual dessert loving, gym avoiding, crisp stuffing 20 somethings. How man y are there of the other kind?).

While running we discuss the longish trip we're planning the day my flat contract expires here. The 6th of September. As mentioned before, I live in two places. Mostly belonging in both, sometimes belonging to neither. In November I'll pack my bags and head to the cool but not cold Home Base I for a few months. The place I was born, the place I live in several months a year, the place of family and laughter. Instead of taking out a new lease, as initially planned, The Sage, Max and (maybe) a special someone have decided to go around the UK, visiting friends, appreciating this place we call home and don't really bother to explore. How awesome is that gonna be!? TS and I have another month before we graduate though, so for the first half of the trip (we hope) we'll also be working on our dissertation.

After a massive dinner (TS cooked. I'm a trainee chef in his kitchen, I only do the dishes) we head to Corynthian, catch up with some friends from uni, get drunker than we care to admit and walk home with aching feet and an exceptionally good mood...you know, it was one of those pleasingly tipsy evenings...

Sometime before we doze off we call Max, have a slurred conversation with her and pass out before we've cleared the bed (TS wakes up at some point in the night and clears it so he can finally rest his head on a pillow instead of my copy of Staying Alive: Real poetry for unreal times). Max drags us out of bed at 3.30pm for some breakfast and all the gossip from last night.

Tomorrow I'm meeting my dissertation supervisor and I have nothing new to say to him. I half panic but still go with Max and TS to his place in the West End where we'll spend the day playing on the Wii, cracking bad jokes, planning the trip. That's a good life, eh?