I consider it to be some sort of growth nowadays that whenever I humiliate myself in real life I do not immediately run and tell my blog. Other things I consider to be some sort of growth? Cancer, erectile function, the dark spot underneath my pickup truck's oil pan.
For my karma demons who consider all this to be a game and are keeping score, here is where the majority of points will be won today: trying to suck every last bit of buzz from a cup of Plantation Mint Tea and an antihistamine free cold tablet. The promises of wide-eyed euphoric hallucination shattered by an inconvenient illness, I am forced to reckon with trying to get by on my power of wit in the absence of my previous power of denial. This doesn't make any sense to me, either.
This is embarrassing to admit, but I do occasionally type in my father's name (in double quotations, even! BOO-lean, motherfucker!) in a search engine here and there, and of course, being as how I come from a long line of persons indistinguishable from any other persons, I might as well just leave the search field blank and click FEELING LUCKY while thinking patriarchal thoughts. So then, because this is how it goes with us common folk, I re-type his name and then add DUI ARREST, because, well, just because.
No, you see, it's not JUST BECAUSE. It's because to have any memory of this man is to remember what it is to be soaked in booze, inside and out. And not just drunk in that literary sense, because let's face it, if there's one place where it's cool and hip to be a drunk it's in the field of literature. It doesn't get much cooler than drunk Ernest Hemingway washing down that final bourbon with a 12-gauge round. And who wouldn't want to die impotent and consumed with a weak ticker like good old F. Scott Fitzgerald? Poe died in a gutter. That's gotta be hard to top.
Applying for a temporary driver's license that will allow you to get to work and back? Takes a bit of the shine off that lushful lustre. Balancing on one foot and bending over to blow into what appears to be a modified crack pipe? Nice. Somehow escaping such an unfortunate fate only to pull over as soon as the next gas station BECAUSE WHEW THAT WAS CLOSE NOW I REALLY NEED A DRINK? That's just fucking terrific.
I had a friend in college who always used to get me in the deepest shit, and what I loved about him was that I knew that whatever shit we got in at least we were in it together. There's a lot of power in that kind of camaraderie that helps you forget about asking if the trouble is worth it in the first place.
The past ten days, everyone in the house and at work keep asking me if I am alright and wondering why I am so quiet, and I don't have the courage to tell them that this is who I am. I am not funny and quick witted and easy going and laid back. I am not quick to smile and ready to laugh. I am sober, in that most boring sense of the word. I don't like me, either. I would not choose to spend time with me, much less in this skin.
But I hate failing at those few things I attempt in earnest, and if I am honest with myself I have to admit that I have completely and utterly failed at being a drunk.
It snowed this morning, and I was worried that the frost would damage the awakening plum blossoms. I'm not so concerned with any of our other trees, but this plum was one we found ready to be discarded at the local nursery, and it had already been given up for dead, and near enough, I suppose, because the first year it seemed completely dormant, but the next spring it somehow decided to come to life. It produced a few flowers, and the energy to do so set it back a good year, but by the third year it put on the most spectacular display of pageantry that I was almost embarrassed for the entire garden. Last year, it even churned out a dozen or so fruits, and I thought, now this is going a bit overboard, but it is almost as though the thing has a mind of its own, and regardless of how we feel about the matter, there is going to be a show, and we can choose to watch or go about our business, our modesties offended and be damned.
I don't have much of that in me these days, but I'm going to try and shout my intentions by the weekend's end. I will work my way up from a whisper, so as not arouse any undue suspicion.
9 comments:
If at first you don't succeed, try... oh wait, no.
I once had a plumb tree in my yard until I leveled it. I always assumed, from it's small flowers, that it was a Sweetgum, but I'm too much the blooming idiot to know for sure.
Sorry. I didn't come her to pun. I came here to say hello.
I'm glad you're not good at being a drunk. It's not really the sort of thing from the mastery of which one benefits much. (Wow. That sentence really got away from me. I have to admit, I have no idea if it works. I'm just going to move on to the aforementioned hello.)
Hello, Brando.
It snowed this morning, and I was worried that the roof would collapse.
Regarding blossoms and fruit, my spirit is on hiatus. I don't expect a good yield until the kids move out.
steph, no one likes a quitter, right?
scott, i will miss the ability to pick up on puns most of all. next to urinating on myself.
peefer, we have the same issue, as the fruit of our loins are usually first to get their hands on the fruit of our labors.
Who says you're not an excellent drunk?! You should never let someone else shatter your dreams. Or take your scotch.
brandon - i like your sobriety and clarity. you may not realize that your writing and creativity are just as lovely now as they were then. its just that your perception has changed... and mine has not. congratulations.
e, i imagine i'll actually be much more popular now that i'm a cheap date.
stacia, thank you. i am eager to see what the result on paper is down the road.
I choose to watch. I am so glad to have read this today.
equally glad, am i, to know people i have neglected for so long are reading ;)
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