Last Friday night: Do I relate to the morning after in "The Hangover Part II" a little bit too much?

Just because it barely made me laugh doesn't mean I didn't know exactly what The Hangover Part II was trying to say. Know what I'm saying?

Anyone with a weakness for tequila shots with beer chasers does. In my time, I've had some killer hangovers accompanied by mysterious memory loss. I think that's what you call blacking out, but that just sounds so low class. I prefer to think that I set aside certain memories and save them for a rainy day when I have nothing better to do than relive the sordid details of my misspent youth and similarly semi-depraved middle age.

I've never cut off a finger (thank God!), tattooed my face, or woken up in a strange congested metropolis that wasn't home, but I did once rise from a drunken slumber in a strange bed somewhere in Brooklyn and had no idea how I got there. Another time, I spent an entire evening cavorting on the dance floor with a long-lost love from Milan (ah, Paolo!), and the next morning, the only evidence I had of having run into him was his phone number in my cell phone. Many is the beautiful stranger I totally would have forgotten about if he hadn't bothered to store his digits in my phone or send me a message at 8.30 the following morning. (That's how Jeremy met Jayden!)

In the olden days, when people actually talked on the telephone, I was the king of drunk dialing. I'm a happy drunk, so my comments usually were something along the lines of "I'm so glad we're friends" and "I love you so much" -- things I wouldn't really say in the light of day during regular business hours. Still, despite my decent track record of not saying anything to piss people off, many was the morning when I woke up petrified by what I must have said the night before and to whom I must have said it.

As talking on the phone gave way to Internet communication, drunk emailing became my embarrassment method of choice. Unfortunately for me, no matter how bad my memory loss was the next day, the "sent" box -- one of the most evil of all computer creations -- contained all the evidence of my mental instability when under the influence of too much José Cuervo. Interestingly, my drunken online rampages ended as mysteriously as they began. Maybe it had something to do with my newfound outlet: sexting.

Boy did I sext some whoppers! Some were tirades (so much for being a 100 per cent happy drunk). Some were non-sequiters. Some were booty calls. A few guys actually showed up. Too bad I usually passed out by time they arrived and didn't hear them buzzing to let them in!

I occasionally still wake up with head trauma after a night of too much imbibing, like last Friday night, to quote the title of Katy Perry's new single. But I've learned my lessons. I turn off the computer before I go out. (Turning it on requires motor skills that just don't function when I'm stumbling and slurring.) I leave my cell phone at home, or I hide it in my sock. (Nothing promotes drunk sexting like a switched-on cell phone easily accessible in your pocket.)

The good news is that my morning afters are no longer cause for alarm. I may not always rise and shine looking or feeling my best with all of my memories intact (and sometimes I'm surrounded by food that I don't recall eating), but for the most part, the only embarrassing conversations I can't remember are live ones from the night before with people who probably remember even less than I do. I'm not quite sure how I always manage to find my way home (especially in Melbourne, where I've already had three addresses, none of which roll off the tongue), but it's been ages since I've woken up in a bed that wasn't mine, and best of all, I'm almost always alone.

I can't think of a better end to a straight tequila night.