No group of people can be this happy.

It was worth it.Every crazy, speed‑, ecstasy- and acid-filled second of it. I lived in a large rambly house with two of my lovers and an ex-lover and her *cur­rent* lover and we mostly got on won­der­fully. Next door was a house full of fellow geek-artist-philo­soph­ers and we ripped down the back­yard fence so we could share gar­dens. Fiona grew egg­plants and we grew herbs and cap­sic­ums. My best friend lived down the lane­way in another house filled with more philo­soph­ers and lin­guists and it was a short walk to STUCCO, the amaz­ing Sydney Uni co-op filled with flowers and artists.

On the week­ends, we played War­ham­mer Fantasy Role­play in one house or the other and some­times we just turned out all the lights and tripped out star­ing into the candles while the Shamen blared weirdly in the back­ground. Other times, we had amaz­ing con­ver­sa­tions about everything under the sun because we were bright and we were learn­ing and we were excited about know­ledge at 3 in the morn­ing, fuelled by intens­ity and love and drugs. There seemed to be parties every other week and in my memory, there was this time before it all went to hell that it was perfect. 

It’s all merged together, all these moments of good times. The parade of extra house­mates merges a little too: Kahren, the ex, and Greta and Hellen, who’s now at New Mat­ilda, and Rachel of the floor-length purple and black exten­sions who shaved her head and went raver on us.

I’d abso­lutely do it again, but those people are scattered all over the place and I don’t think it works that way any more. David and Phil are both in mono­gam­ous rela­tion­ships now; Justine isn’t, but she’s in Ger­many; Christina, who used to pop up from Mel­bourne, is now in Hol­land; Fiona, it turned out, loathed me; Rodger and I have a strained rela­tion­ship now, because of some­thing I said once in a fit of piqué and bit­ter­ness; his old house­mate David is mar­ried to my ex-girl­friend Ruth (not the same ex) and they’ve just had their second child. Robyn mar­ried Phil’s lin­guist­ics class­mate and they’ve just had *their* second child. Not that Robyn or Mat­thew ever got into the mad­ness anyway, except for that one time when Mat­thew was furi­ous because no one told him the chocol­ate cake was spiked.

And no, I’m not still doing it. I gave up those things years ago, which isn’t to say I don’t have crav­ings from time to time. My memory, though, is test­a­ment to the dam­ages done, and I also remem­ber the bad times, the drama and the intensity.

But I’d do it again. Oh, yeah, I’d do it again.