.
this was yesterday--minor incident on its face, but i can't get it outta my mind.
i'm at the grocery store, squatting down and reading a label. i sense a blur of motion to my left, and all of a sudden this little girl of maybe 3 or 4 is all over me, jumping up and down and pounding my back in an exaggerated gesture of affection--you know, like kids do at that age.
she's adorable, big smile on her face, and i smile back, give her a little hug, and just as i'm in the middle of saying, "well, hi there, sweetheart, what's your na--"
another blur of motion in my periphery, and the kid is yanked away from me into the protective grasp of, i assume, her mother, who turns without even a glance in my direction and walks back to her cart, all the while admonishing the child to never, ever talk to strangers. she looks back over the woman's shoulder at me as they turn the corner, but she's not smiling anymore.
welcome to the brave new world, kid.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
oh, and one more thing
.
today's david's birthday. he was exactly fifty-one weeks older than me back when we were in high school, and he's exactly fifty-one weeks older than me today.
funny how i always remember his birthday and forget mine.
today's david's birthday. he was exactly fifty-one weeks older than me back when we were in high school, and he's exactly fifty-one weeks older than me today.
funny how i always remember his birthday and forget mine.
an inside post
.
[and one that'll probably bore you silly, so feel free to skip it. but i needed a safe place to put this particular email exchange so i'd have a record of it, and that's what blogs are for, right? or maybe that's just what this blog is for.]
in response to this post, an old friend's email contained the following:
to which he replied:
to which, just now, i replied:
seventeen years, summed up neatly.
[and one that'll probably bore you silly, so feel free to skip it. but i needed a safe place to put this particular email exchange so i'd have a record of it, and that's what blogs are for, right? or maybe that's just what this blog is for.]
in response to this post, an old friend's email contained the following:
So, I guess that explains to me a little about you because although you came out later, I do not think that you passed your prime. But apparently you did. To me, you were actually in the ripe years. But, for you, you thought of yourself as already on the downhill arc.to which i replied:
I say this now at 40 because I can certainly imagine myself at 25 VERY attracted to me at 40. I doubt you think so. Indeed, I think you would not even give yourself a second look if you at 25 saw yourself in a bar at 40.
Of course if this happened, it would also cause a tear in the space-time continuum and we would all be destroyed.
ah, life would be so much easier if i was into white guys in their 40s, since so many of 'em seem to be into me these days. but i never was, and never will be. and as far as finding myself attractive--hell, i wouldn't have done me back when i was 19, and i certainly wouldn't now.
i remember though, back around 1991 when i first hit town, more than one guy told me i was at the height of my studliness and i'd better enjoy it while it lasted. i just laughed.
to which he replied:
I don't know how to respond. I guess the only thing I can say is that you have never been able to generate much enthusiasm for an emotional attachment--a relationship. Because that changes everything.
[he completely forgot about v, of course--and how that sadly didn't change everything.]
Your primary basis of reference is who you trick with...and while that has its place, you seem to have no other reference point, no other perspective. And you do not seem to want any other perspective. You were so excited when you first met Roman...his name escapes me for the moment...and to have an actual first love. Whatever happened to that?
[...]
Basically, you have not changed a lot in the 17 years that I've known you. While it is true that I can say that about a lot of people, it's also true that I can't say that about too many people I respect.
So, why not?
If I'm being harsh, you know it's 'cause I love you. If I really wanted to wound, well, now, you would know that too.
to which, just now, i replied:
au contrare, mon frere--i've changed tremendously over the past 17 years. problem is, it's mostly been for the worse--i've magnified my failures and minimized my successes to the point that the idea of sticking my head up outta the ol' foxhole again is pretty much more than i can bear; i anticipate defeat to the point that my world has pretty much shrunk down to what i can see around me. i work and i go home.
his name was rummel, btw. i "loved" him because he was safely unavailable; had he returned my interest in kind, i'd have probably run screaming. the experience--that failure and its associated pain--did pretty much cure me of such foolishness, though, i'll say that for it.
you know me well in many ways, r__, but you've never really understood me. you can't look far enough past the way that you yourself relate to the world and other people to recognize that the way i do it might be irremediably, unfixably different from yours; even as smart as you are and with all the therapy you've had, when it comes to me, you're still, like, "oh, snap out of it." it's a lack of empathy on a level i see (and expect) quite often in the stupid, the unreflective and the lame, but rarely do i come across it in people i respect.
makes us even, i guess.
seventeen years, summed up neatly.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
like i have something to say that's different from everybody else's blatherings on the subject
.
but has that ever stopped me before? of course not, so let's begin.
1. first, i'm a little surprised that several very bright people have taken my initial assessment of sarah palin as some kind of endorsement. all i ever said was, she is who she is, and always has been, in a way that her opponent can't even begin to approach. i stand by that assessment.
2. and yeah, i said "her opponent," because in case you haven't yet realized this, her opponent is not joe biden [hell, if russia hadn't invaded georgia the week before the light-on-foreign-policy (among other things) democratic nominee had to make his vp pick, mr. blowhard bank-owned senate-foreign-relations-committee-chairman with his bad hair plugs, capped teeth and prior dismissal of the head of the ticket wouldn't have even been in the running]--make no mistake: this race is palin v. obama.
3. the other thing i said back then was, she's not gonna be taken down by scandals, and i stand by that one too. troopergate? so she fires people who cross her--everybody in power does, and nobody gives a rat's ass. she was for pork before she was against it? again, nobody but the liberals cares. she shoots wolves from helicopters? wow, guns and helicopters--sounds manly to me; can you imagine the effete obama nutting up enough to do something like that?
4. and now for the family crap--and this is what really slays me: watching the liberal shitstorm of holier-than-thou condemnation because palin's public family-values stance doesn't jibe with the private train-wreck reality of her actual family life. and understand: these are the same people who ten years ago just as shrilly admonished us that whatever shambles bill clinton made of his private life should be between him and his family, and had absolutely nothing to do with his ability to run the country. fuckin' two-faced hypocritical assholes, all of you!
5. but what really chaps me about this is, the reason this woman's family is a mess is because she did exactly what the liberal feminists who are today so loudly denouncing her fuckin' told her to do: she said, "fuck stay-at-home motherhood--i'm gonna go out and fulfill my professional destiny as a woman and let my kids fend for themselves." and now, big surprise--her son's a drug addict, her daughter's a pregnant slut and she has a troubled marriage.
6. the thing is--and the reason this is not only not gonna hurt her with the electorate, but probably help her--is that her family is pretty much just like every other fucked-up family in america today, and for pretty much the same reasons; hell, the only thing missing is the divorce and remarriages.
7. but what really, really kills me is, all of the foregoing is sideshow stuff, and has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of why this woman is so totally, completely and disastrously wrong for the job she may well be called upon to do.
8. why is it that my countrymen--both left and right--are these days so easily willing to cast the fate of their country into the hands of telegenic, charismatic people whose primary career accomplishment is glib mastery of the teleprompter?
whoever said it was right--we get the government we deserve.
[h/t to april for the above image]
but has that ever stopped me before? of course not, so let's begin.
1. first, i'm a little surprised that several very bright people have taken my initial assessment of sarah palin as some kind of endorsement. all i ever said was, she is who she is, and always has been, in a way that her opponent can't even begin to approach. i stand by that assessment.
2. and yeah, i said "her opponent," because in case you haven't yet realized this, her opponent is not joe biden [hell, if russia hadn't invaded georgia the week before the light-on-foreign-policy (among other things) democratic nominee had to make his vp pick, mr. blowhard bank-owned senate-foreign-relations-committee-chairman with his bad hair plugs, capped teeth and prior dismissal of the head of the ticket wouldn't have even been in the running]--make no mistake: this race is palin v. obama.
3. the other thing i said back then was, she's not gonna be taken down by scandals, and i stand by that one too. troopergate? so she fires people who cross her--everybody in power does, and nobody gives a rat's ass. she was for pork before she was against it? again, nobody but the liberals cares. she shoots wolves from helicopters? wow, guns and helicopters--sounds manly to me; can you imagine the effete obama nutting up enough to do something like that?
4. and now for the family crap--and this is what really slays me: watching the liberal shitstorm of holier-than-thou condemnation because palin's public family-values stance doesn't jibe with the private train-wreck reality of her actual family life. and understand: these are the same people who ten years ago just as shrilly admonished us that whatever shambles bill clinton made of his private life should be between him and his family, and had absolutely nothing to do with his ability to run the country. fuckin' two-faced hypocritical assholes, all of you!
5. but what really chaps me about this is, the reason this woman's family is a mess is because she did exactly what the liberal feminists who are today so loudly denouncing her fuckin' told her to do: she said, "fuck stay-at-home motherhood--i'm gonna go out and fulfill my professional destiny as a woman and let my kids fend for themselves." and now, big surprise--her son's a drug addict, her daughter's a pregnant slut and she has a troubled marriage.
6. the thing is--and the reason this is not only not gonna hurt her with the electorate, but probably help her--is that her family is pretty much just like every other fucked-up family in america today, and for pretty much the same reasons; hell, the only thing missing is the divorce and remarriages.
7. but what really, really kills me is, all of the foregoing is sideshow stuff, and has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of why this woman is so totally, completely and disastrously wrong for the job she may well be called upon to do.
8. why is it that my countrymen--both left and right--are these days so easily willing to cast the fate of their country into the hands of telegenic, charismatic people whose primary career accomplishment is glib mastery of the teleprompter?
whoever said it was right--we get the government we deserve.
[h/t to april for the above image]
Saturday, September 13, 2008
and after the pride is gone--then what?
.
yes, in this post, i'm waxing sentimental about a tube o' lube--and not even a very good-looking tube o' lube at that. i mean, look at it--"pride" lubricant?! and even if you can get past the lame-ass branding, it's scuffed and scarred and its once-vibrant pink-on-black is but a sad, faded shadow of its former self.
but regardless of all that, there's a reason this little tube o' lube is special: it's because, outta the hundreds of tubes just like it that have sustained me over the years through good times and bad, this is my very last one.
is there a story here? well, of course there is--where the fuck you think you are, anyway?
picture it: west hollywood, summer 1992 (or 1991, whatever--i have no doubt i'll be corrected). i'm newly out, a late bloomer, making up for lost time and sharing a house on crescent heights boulevard (the infamous "841," as it would come to be known) with paul and royce, who are showing me the ropes. through a series of machinations i won't bother going into here, we acquire a temporary fourth roommate: fresh from berkeley, the young, tender ex-boyfriend of the first guy i ever slept with--let's call him (for lack of a better name) noblesavage--is gonna enjoy the hospitality of our couch for the summer.
but you gotta understand--unlike the grim, teutonic taskmaster that is the noblesavage you see in my comments today (especially that last post), back in the day he was a hot, juicy little number--definitely the new boy in town that summer, and the house was just a little bit jealous of all the attention he stirred up (unlike the other two roomies, however, noblesavage and i took the trouble to look past the surface of what we saw in each other that summer, and developed a friendship that endures to this day).
anyway, even though we were both pretty new, noblesavage and i took really divergent paths in exploring our emergent sexuality: he was much more interested the communal aspects of the gay experience--you know, the music, the crowds, the dancing--all that stuff i had no use for, wrapped up as i then was in my lonely, single-minded pursuit of every 22-year-old piece of ass i could get my hands on.
and he quickly found his home that summer--a club called probe over on highland. legendary in its day, it featured the experience he was looking for: best dj's, best music, hottest boys in town writhing shirtless and sweaty on the dance floor as one, and all of it all night long until way past dawn.
[and just as quickly, he found his hook--and it was pure marketing genius. a repressed catholic boy, noblesavage showed up in town that summer with a box full of dozens of cheap, glow-in-the-dark rosaries he'd gotten from some religious mail-order catalog company--we're talking plastic beads and a crucifix heat-formed onto a circle of string--tackiest goddam things you've ever seen.
and before he'd set out for probe on any given night, he'd hang a couple dozen of 'em around his neck. while they looked dull and cheap in the light of day, they glowed as brilliantly as the most precious jewels under the black lights of the club--between the luminosity of the rosaries and his chicken-prettiness, he was damn well bound to stand out, and he did.
but then--and this is the genius part--as the night wore on, he'd walk up to guys who were either really hot and/or danced really well, remove one of the rosaries from around his neck and place it around theirs. and since he was really hot and/or danced really well, they'd generally accept it as the badge of honor it seemed to be, until, by the end of the night, he'd branded all the hot boys in the place with his own little ring of fire. and from what i understand, by the end of the summer, boys'd kill to get one of those glowing rosaries hung around their necks--it meant they were hot, right?]
but back to the story--one bright, sunny sunday morning towards the end of that summer, noblesavage came in the front door of 841, strode into my bedroom, tossed this huge box at the foot of my bed and said, "here--for you."
and i remember looking at him quizzically, kneeling down and ripping the box open, gaping at the contents--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of of little sample tubes of lube--and then up at him with my mouth open.
and he said, offhandedly, "pride lubricant was doing a promotion at probe last night--they were tossing these things out at the crowd. i managed to snag a box for you--i figure if anybody could put 'em to good use, it would be you."
ok, for those of you who don't understand the overwhelming sense of gratitude that overtook me at that moment, lemme put it this way: lube is expensive, and giving a slutty faggot an endless supply of the stuff is pretty much the equivalent of giving a long-haul trucker an endless supply of diesel--it's that major.
and a seemingly endless supply it was--after awhile, the tubes o' lube went from the box to this big gym-bag that i kept next to my bed for years afterwards. and of course a big handful o' tubes went into the glove compartment of my car--and a handful went into the left pocket of my jeans whenever i left the house for even a walk to the mailbox (this being west hollywood and all)--and, naturally, as a lovely parting gift, a handful o' tubes would often go into the pocket of whatever trick du jour i was shoving out the door.
what the hell did i care? i had all the lube in the world--and if you haven't experienced that lovely feeling for yourself, i can't even begin to describe it to you.
and this happy state of affairs continued for years and years afterwards--until, sometime in the late '90s, something weird started to happen: with time and age, the the little tubes o' lube started to thicken and coalesce--i mean, yeah, you could spit on it and loosen it up, but it wasn't the same, and the boys started to complain.
so, reluctantly, i did the unthinkable and started buying retail. but i always knew i had a fallback--if i ran out (and i often did), sure as the sun would come up tomorrow, the tubes o' lube were always there, waiting to rescue me--and they were always better than nothing.
until a couple weeks ago, when i reached into the duffle, and came up with...this last, lonely, forlorn, beat-up little tube (and yeah, it's taken me that long to compose myself sufficiently to write this post, and sort out all the associated memories).
what the hell--end of one more era.
yes, in this post, i'm waxing sentimental about a tube o' lube--and not even a very good-looking tube o' lube at that. i mean, look at it--"pride" lubricant?! and even if you can get past the lame-ass branding, it's scuffed and scarred and its once-vibrant pink-on-black is but a sad, faded shadow of its former self.
but regardless of all that, there's a reason this little tube o' lube is special: it's because, outta the hundreds of tubes just like it that have sustained me over the years through good times and bad, this is my very last one.
is there a story here? well, of course there is--where the fuck you think you are, anyway?
picture it: west hollywood, summer 1992 (or 1991, whatever--i have no doubt i'll be corrected). i'm newly out, a late bloomer, making up for lost time and sharing a house on crescent heights boulevard (the infamous "841," as it would come to be known) with paul and royce, who are showing me the ropes. through a series of machinations i won't bother going into here, we acquire a temporary fourth roommate: fresh from berkeley, the young, tender ex-boyfriend of the first guy i ever slept with--let's call him (for lack of a better name) noblesavage--is gonna enjoy the hospitality of our couch for the summer.
but you gotta understand--unlike the grim, teutonic taskmaster that is the noblesavage you see in my comments today (especially that last post), back in the day he was a hot, juicy little number--definitely the new boy in town that summer, and the house was just a little bit jealous of all the attention he stirred up (unlike the other two roomies, however, noblesavage and i took the trouble to look past the surface of what we saw in each other that summer, and developed a friendship that endures to this day).
anyway, even though we were both pretty new, noblesavage and i took really divergent paths in exploring our emergent sexuality: he was much more interested the communal aspects of the gay experience--you know, the music, the crowds, the dancing--all that stuff i had no use for, wrapped up as i then was in my lonely, single-minded pursuit of every 22-year-old piece of ass i could get my hands on.
and he quickly found his home that summer--a club called probe over on highland. legendary in its day, it featured the experience he was looking for: best dj's, best music, hottest boys in town writhing shirtless and sweaty on the dance floor as one, and all of it all night long until way past dawn.
[and just as quickly, he found his hook--and it was pure marketing genius. a repressed catholic boy, noblesavage showed up in town that summer with a box full of dozens of cheap, glow-in-the-dark rosaries he'd gotten from some religious mail-order catalog company--we're talking plastic beads and a crucifix heat-formed onto a circle of string--tackiest goddam things you've ever seen.
and before he'd set out for probe on any given night, he'd hang a couple dozen of 'em around his neck. while they looked dull and cheap in the light of day, they glowed as brilliantly as the most precious jewels under the black lights of the club--between the luminosity of the rosaries and his chicken-prettiness, he was damn well bound to stand out, and he did.
but then--and this is the genius part--as the night wore on, he'd walk up to guys who were either really hot and/or danced really well, remove one of the rosaries from around his neck and place it around theirs. and since he was really hot and/or danced really well, they'd generally accept it as the badge of honor it seemed to be, until, by the end of the night, he'd branded all the hot boys in the place with his own little ring of fire. and from what i understand, by the end of the summer, boys'd kill to get one of those glowing rosaries hung around their necks--it meant they were hot, right?]
but back to the story--one bright, sunny sunday morning towards the end of that summer, noblesavage came in the front door of 841, strode into my bedroom, tossed this huge box at the foot of my bed and said, "here--for you."
and i remember looking at him quizzically, kneeling down and ripping the box open, gaping at the contents--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of of little sample tubes of lube--and then up at him with my mouth open.
and he said, offhandedly, "pride lubricant was doing a promotion at probe last night--they were tossing these things out at the crowd. i managed to snag a box for you--i figure if anybody could put 'em to good use, it would be you."
ok, for those of you who don't understand the overwhelming sense of gratitude that overtook me at that moment, lemme put it this way: lube is expensive, and giving a slutty faggot an endless supply of the stuff is pretty much the equivalent of giving a long-haul trucker an endless supply of diesel--it's that major.
and a seemingly endless supply it was--after awhile, the tubes o' lube went from the box to this big gym-bag that i kept next to my bed for years afterwards. and of course a big handful o' tubes went into the glove compartment of my car--and a handful went into the left pocket of my jeans whenever i left the house for even a walk to the mailbox (this being west hollywood and all)--and, naturally, as a lovely parting gift, a handful o' tubes would often go into the pocket of whatever trick du jour i was shoving out the door.
what the hell did i care? i had all the lube in the world--and if you haven't experienced that lovely feeling for yourself, i can't even begin to describe it to you.
and this happy state of affairs continued for years and years afterwards--until, sometime in the late '90s, something weird started to happen: with time and age, the the little tubes o' lube started to thicken and coalesce--i mean, yeah, you could spit on it and loosen it up, but it wasn't the same, and the boys started to complain.
so, reluctantly, i did the unthinkable and started buying retail. but i always knew i had a fallback--if i ran out (and i often did), sure as the sun would come up tomorrow, the tubes o' lube were always there, waiting to rescue me--and they were always better than nothing.
until a couple weeks ago, when i reached into the duffle, and came up with...this last, lonely, forlorn, beat-up little tube (and yeah, it's taken me that long to compose myself sufficiently to write this post, and sort out all the associated memories).
what the hell--end of one more era.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
sorry, i've been thinking
.
[this introspective crap is not a trend, i promise--back to the same ol' shit soon.]
and you wanna hear something even crazier--i've been sober.
you heard me right, bitches--i haven't had a drink [except for the two watered-down cape cods at the straight bar on friday night, but that was just to be social] in a goddam week.
after the excesses of last week--and some ugly truths made evident thereby--i needed to clear my head, get some perspective, maybe prove i could do it.
and over the course of this past week, i've thought a lot, written a little (shit that'll never see the light of day here, and you can thank god for that), and tried to make sense of why, when i've never, ever had a problem with alcohol--even through my young, dumb years--it's happening to me now.
and i think i have a pretty good idea, but i can't really explain it in a way that's gonna make any sense to anybody but me, so i'm not even gonna try (at least, not right now--maybe later, if i'm feeling extra-confessional).
what i do want to do is express my appreciation to all of you who weighed in on my last post--i've gone back and read those comments several times this week (see, i can't really talk too much about this shit in my real life--gotta keep up the front, you know?--so i really value the input i get here, especially when it's as thoughtful as it was this time around), and probably will do so many times in the future.
as far as the future goes, i'm gonna be making some changes--actually, i've already put a few in motion. i dunno if i can modulate my alcohol intake--i mean, when i start in, it's hard for me to stop (as someone who should know reminded me, addictions are really fun), so i may just have to lay off the sauce for awhile--haven't made a hard decision about that yet.
how will that affect the blog? could be a problem--see, in looking back over my output since the inception of guttermorality, most of the stuff that i'd describe as passably good was written when i was under the influence, so it may be a little dry around here for awhile (in more ways than one).
oh, well--i guess time will tell. in any event, thanks again to all of you who give a rat's ass.
[this introspective crap is not a trend, i promise--back to the same ol' shit soon.]
and you wanna hear something even crazier--i've been sober.
you heard me right, bitches--i haven't had a drink [except for the two watered-down cape cods at the straight bar on friday night, but that was just to be social] in a goddam week.
after the excesses of last week--and some ugly truths made evident thereby--i needed to clear my head, get some perspective, maybe prove i could do it.
and over the course of this past week, i've thought a lot, written a little (shit that'll never see the light of day here, and you can thank god for that), and tried to make sense of why, when i've never, ever had a problem with alcohol--even through my young, dumb years--it's happening to me now.
and i think i have a pretty good idea, but i can't really explain it in a way that's gonna make any sense to anybody but me, so i'm not even gonna try (at least, not right now--maybe later, if i'm feeling extra-confessional).
what i do want to do is express my appreciation to all of you who weighed in on my last post--i've gone back and read those comments several times this week (see, i can't really talk too much about this shit in my real life--gotta keep up the front, you know?--so i really value the input i get here, especially when it's as thoughtful as it was this time around), and probably will do so many times in the future.
as far as the future goes, i'm gonna be making some changes--actually, i've already put a few in motion. i dunno if i can modulate my alcohol intake--i mean, when i start in, it's hard for me to stop (as someone who should know reminded me, addictions are really fun), so i may just have to lay off the sauce for awhile--haven't made a hard decision about that yet.
how will that affect the blog? could be a problem--see, in looking back over my output since the inception of guttermorality, most of the stuff that i'd describe as passably good was written when i was under the influence, so it may be a little dry around here for awhile (in more ways than one).
oh, well--i guess time will tell. in any event, thanks again to all of you who give a rat's ass.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
regrets, i have a few
.
readers of this blog (if there are any left at this point) may have noticed that over the last several months i've tried to move away from messy, train-wrecky posts into more--for lack of a better word--mainstream shit.
well, this week all that went out the window.
sunday night, i tore into a 74-year-old wheelchair-bound stroke victim--nice, huh?--and then tuesday night (or wednesday morning, to all you normal people), i offered myself up as red meat to a guy who chews up the lame and the drunk for idle sport. when i sobered up, i thought about taking those posts down, because i'm embarrassed by them. but fuck it--they're what happened, so i'm leaving 'em up.
i want to apologize to my readers. i understand that we have an implied contract: you guys come here and offer up your time with the expectation that you're gonna get something back that makes that investment of time worthwhile. that hasn't happened much this week, and i'll try to do better.
between the hours of 11:30 p.m. tuesday night and about 8:30 the following morning, i consumed a little over half of a 1.75-liter jug of vodka; this, for the mathematically inclined, works out to about 32 ounces of alcohol (i.e., a quart), or about 21 standard cocktails.
while i have no doubt i'd be laughed off skid row as a rank amateur with a score like that, it concerns me for the following reasons:
1. i wasn't incapacitated by this quantity of liquor; on the contrary, i stayed up another half-hour or so after finishing my last drink because i wasn't finished drunk-commenting. i then went to bed and slept like a baby.
2. six hours later, i was up--no headache, no nausea, no light-sensitivity, no hangover symptoms whatever.
3. a few months ago, i expressed concern here at my ability to go through a third of one of those bottles in a sitting (and a year before that, a quarter)--now i'm past the halfway mark. anybody seeing a trend here?
my body's become a very efficient alcohol-processing machine. it doesn't crave the stuff (yet), but it sure likes it, and on certain nights of the week, it damn well expects it--and it always wants a little more.
there's no imminent crisis (unless you count the trashing of my online reputation, of course)--no unexplained blackouts, my job isn't threatened, i don't get behind the wheel anymore, my health's fine--at this point it's merely a big-ass problem. the irony is, it's a problem that, had you told me even three years ago i'd ever have, i'd have laughed in your face.
and i really don't have the slightest idea what to do about it.
readers of this blog (if there are any left at this point) may have noticed that over the last several months i've tried to move away from messy, train-wrecky posts into more--for lack of a better word--mainstream shit.
well, this week all that went out the window.
sunday night, i tore into a 74-year-old wheelchair-bound stroke victim--nice, huh?--and then tuesday night (or wednesday morning, to all you normal people), i offered myself up as red meat to a guy who chews up the lame and the drunk for idle sport. when i sobered up, i thought about taking those posts down, because i'm embarrassed by them. but fuck it--they're what happened, so i'm leaving 'em up.
i want to apologize to my readers. i understand that we have an implied contract: you guys come here and offer up your time with the expectation that you're gonna get something back that makes that investment of time worthwhile. that hasn't happened much this week, and i'll try to do better.
* * * * *
between the hours of 11:30 p.m. tuesday night and about 8:30 the following morning, i consumed a little over half of a 1.75-liter jug of vodka; this, for the mathematically inclined, works out to about 32 ounces of alcohol (i.e., a quart), or about 21 standard cocktails.
while i have no doubt i'd be laughed off skid row as a rank amateur with a score like that, it concerns me for the following reasons:
1. i wasn't incapacitated by this quantity of liquor; on the contrary, i stayed up another half-hour or so after finishing my last drink because i wasn't finished drunk-commenting. i then went to bed and slept like a baby.
2. six hours later, i was up--no headache, no nausea, no light-sensitivity, no hangover symptoms whatever.
3. a few months ago, i expressed concern here at my ability to go through a third of one of those bottles in a sitting (and a year before that, a quarter)--now i'm past the halfway mark. anybody seeing a trend here?
my body's become a very efficient alcohol-processing machine. it doesn't crave the stuff (yet), but it sure likes it, and on certain nights of the week, it damn well expects it--and it always wants a little more.
there's no imminent crisis (unless you count the trashing of my online reputation, of course)--no unexplained blackouts, my job isn't threatened, i don't get behind the wheel anymore, my health's fine--at this point it's merely a big-ass problem. the irony is, it's a problem that, had you told me even three years ago i'd ever have, i'd have laughed in your face.
and i really don't have the slightest idea what to do about it.
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