Post-Modern Drunk: Sobriety or the Sobriquet?
I can never remember if "on the wagon" means teetotaling or boozing it up. I never say "teetotaling" out loud because I'm not sure how to properly pronounce it. And I find Temperance has an odd scary Biblical feel to it, like it should be lumped together with obscure venial sins like usury and parsimony--these concepts that people find distasteful on those rare occasions that they stumble across them.

This is probably a sign of the particular way my brain has been trained: that it's automatically skips over these concepts because subconsciously I find them uncomfortable at best, repugnant at worst. Or maybe a lifetime "off the wagon" (I finally looked it up), avoiding those who teetotal, and laughing at the defunct Temperance movement has left a keg-shaped hole in my brain where certain fundamental concepts and vocabulary words should be residing.

We may soon be able to figure out which it is. Your friendly Post-Modern Drunkard is currently sans raison d'etre. I've betrayed my nom de guerre. That is to say, I'm currently on my second day without alcohol. (I've also just used up my entire stockpile of French outside of "oui" and "menage a trois," but that's besides the point)

I don't mean to alarm you, gentle reader--I haven't given up the sauce entirely. The two days without alcohol weren't even consecutive (a Wednesday and a Sunday), and the intervening days can only be described as alcohol-soaked. But it's the thought that counts, I'm told.

The reason for my tentative crawl onto the wagon is simple: I could literally--with no hyperbole involved here--not remember the last day that went by without my having a drink. I suspect, though am by no means sure, that it was probably around Thanksgiving of this past year when my family visited, but it's entirely likely even then that I drank at least a couple beers a day. If not then, then it's highly likely that I've been going more than a year at my typical two or three (okay, four or five) drinks a night, whether others are around or not.

I can only assume that you, my fellow readers, writers, and drinkers are reading this with a furrowed brow and an expression of worry--not only at the sheer amount of punishment that my liver has gone through, but also at the damage that my wallet has gone through in the struggle for the Almighty Bottle.

You can only imagine how I feel about it. In this moment of clarity, I decided that it was probably a good idea to cut the drinking back a wee bit. This is actually part of a greater self-improvement kick that I am on--a quixotic attempt to improve myself so that I can one day be worthy of being loved.

It's actually an odd feeling: to be going through a period of intense self-doubt/questioning (okay, that's not the odd feeling) and to deal with it by NOT drinking (that's the odd part). In all likelihood, I shall be back to my hard drinking days shortly.

After all, I have a bottle of Tuaca that's just waiting for me to drink and review it. So fear not, my fellow traveler. The PMD will be back on the job shortly. Until then, I'll just have to find other things to kvetch about.

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