March 13, 2005

• Before we get to this week’s post, I’d just like to thank you fabulous readers for your comments on my last post. I was thrilled to see so many new names posting and even happier to visit your sites.
  
  Also, a wholehearted recommendation on a worthwhile way to spend your hard earned (or in my case birthday) money: Margaret Cho’s Assassin Tour! It was hilarious. If you are lucky enough to have the Cho come to your city, go see her! If you live in the boondocks, make sure you add her DVD of her last comedy tour, entitled Revolution, to your Netflicks que. For those of us who fight the good fight, who believe in human rights, gay rights, women’s rights, deconstructing racial boundaries, dismantling the scary conservative right wing, and eating all the carbs we damn well please–Margaret Cho is a refreshing, welcome, and beautiful relief. With creeps like James Dobson, George W. Bush, Bill O’Reily, and Rush Limbaugh clogging up every facet of the “liberal media” (HA! Liberal my ass…), it’s good to have someone as awesomely vocal as our Cho to help counter their scary, destructive propaganda. So go enjoy some Cho! But first, read the following “coming of age” essay that I wrote for your reading pleaure. Enjoy, and as always, your comments and readership are cherished. Take care!
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  Call me Naive (I am)
  © The Author, 2005
  
  Debauchery has gotten the best of me and left me with indigestion and a monster zit on my left temple. I hate drinking.
  
  Last winter I had my first hang over. Surprisingly enough, my alcohol-induced rancor was more than legal. I was 22 years old when I whined into the hollow chasm of the toilet bowl, “My mom’s going to be so disappointed in me!” Actually, I am lying. I never made it to the toilet bowl.
  
  After waking up in my best friend’s apartment, I turned on the television and witnessed an unfair amount of cellulite jiggling about on the show Reno 911. I then proceeded to grab my friend’s candy dish from his coffee table, chuck its contents onto the floor, and retch into it. If my mom was disappointed when she heard, she hid it well beneath her laughter. I have not been hung over in this way since. In fact, I’d rather die than do it again.
  
  I like letting loose. I like conversation. I like dancing. I like meeting new people. I like sex. Aside from the aforementioned drinking debacle, I have never felt the need to drink to do any of these things.
  
  Don’t get me wrong–I’m not straight edge by any means. I appreciate a glass of wine with my dinner, a chilly cider with my spicy curry, and a glass of frosty Belgium beer after work, a long island ice tea before karaoke, and a cuddly cup of sake with my sushi. But I don’t enjoy getting trashed for the sake of getting trashed. Frankly, I don’t enjoy more than the occasional drink or two with my dinner.
  
  I could say that my moderate drinking behaviors are due to the fact that I fear the hereditary nature of alcoholism–a fear that did grip me at one point after alcoholism pickled my dad and his brothers–but that is not entirely true. Nor are my any claims I could make about the questionable morality of alcohol (although I could make a few in regards to the selfish thoughtlessness of drinking and driving).
  
  The truth behind my rules of moderation is this: I am a control freak with a temperamental tummy. I dislike situations that I feel powerless in (and as we all know, alcohol starts with your motor skills and doesn’t stop there), and I don’t enjoy shitting sad little pellets like a bunny, which for some inexplicable reason, alcohol causes for me. Plus, I don’t need to get sloshed to feel comfortable socially like some people seem to.
  
  As for neglecting to have sipped a beer or two in high school, I can honestly say that I was too dorky to ever have been invited to parties where booze were supplied. In high school I was a compulsively reading, theater obsessed, choirgirl. Neither the Alto section nor the book club ever got around to throwing a kegger. Plus, I have always hated acting like a cliché, and since I am white and not very gay, there was little I could do to push against the oppressive force of “sameness” that permeated from my high school counterparts. I figured that by not drinking, I would be “different.” I was blissfully ignorant to the fact that my sobriety supported stereotypical choirgirl behavior, but high school logic is never as solid as we would like it to be.
  
  Anyhow, despite the fact that I generally live a primarily sober life, my devilishly fun best friend and cousin came from Michigan to visit this week, which caused me to foolishly abandon my typically moderate alcohol consumption preference so as not to cramp their vacation style. Their rules of alcohol consumption vary drastically from my own. According to them, the phrase “drink responsibly” can be loosely translated to “buy in rounds.”
  
  I truly cannot grasp how so many people in their early twenties live a life style that involves frequent weekend pub crawling and clubbing. Call me naive (I am), but I am honestly perplexed about the pure logistics of it all. It was hard enough to keep up for the four days my guests were staying with me; I cannot fathom how anyone could regularly juggle their lives while suffering from the exhaustion caused by chemically induced fun. Not to mention the fact that bars are expensive. How on earth do these people have any money left over to pay their bills? How do they function at work?
  
  While I am not judging those like my visitors (who admirably manage to function while frequently getting sloshed), my heart aches a bit for the things that I hope that this type of debauchery does not rob them of. Life can be so simple, so pure, so beautiful, and so easy. Life can shine so radiantly that it would ache to look at with dilated pupils. Human interaction is too precious to dilute. Sex is too glorious to numb. You miss a lot when you are drunk. And worst of all, the next day you just might shit like a bunny.
  
  After bidding my visitors farewell last night, I closed the door behind them. Quietly, I rested my throbbing head against the wooden frame of the door and exhaled for a full minute. I wearily turned back to my trashed apartment. Scanning the damage, I was happy to find my partner waiting patiently for me in the kitchen. Sweetly, he held a glass of cold water out to me. I went to him and grabbed the cold glass. I gulped it down, my body relived to taste a pure clean liquid. Slamming my glass down, I sighed and held my love tight. I was nourished at last.

  • 5:35 pm
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