Post-Modern Drunk: Fairytale in New York
Things realized, learned, or remembered, on a pre-Christmas weekend. (Twelve of them, of course. Isn't everything Christmas-oriented broken up into twelve?)

1. When going to a party that will mostly be filled with young women, by far the best gift you can give the bar and yourself is a bottle of Kahlua. Any party worth staying at for more than a couple of minutes will have vodka, and almost any apartment has milk for the taking, so White Russians are just a highball glass and two ice cubes away. White Russians are sweet enough for picky people to drink, deceptively strong enough to please a seasoned drinker, and have just enough cool factor in them so you don't feel like an idiot drinking chocolate milk.

2. However, if you really want to drink White Russians at a Lebowskian clip, while getting the women around you drunk as well, you absolutely must make sure there is enough vodka in the house to sustain the crowd. Vodka is always the first spirit to run out at a party, and there's nothing worse than running out of alcohol five minutes past midnight on a Friday.

3. If you run out of vodka trying to make White Russians, grenadine is definitely not an acceptible substitute.

4. Nor is coconut flavored rum.

5. If you happen to be at a party, and within fifteen minutes you wind up telling a complete stranger you just met a long involved story that ends with, "Yeah, that was one of the dumbest things I've ever done," it is probably a good idea to slow down on the drinking. It's going to be one of those nights, and you might as well try to mitigate the damage.

6. The absolute worst compliment in the world to receive is, from a girl you've been chatting with at a party, "That's great! My boyfriend is the _same_ way."

7. Apropos of nothing (other than it being Christmas), the Pogue's "Fairytale of New York," is by far the greatest Christmas song ever written. It is also the only Christmas themed song I can listen to, so there's not much competition. But it's one of my favorite songs. "I can see a better time, when all our dreams come true." what's not to love about that? But the real joy comes in the last verse, when Kristy MacColl accuses the narrator, "You took my dreams from me when I first found you," and Shane MacGowan responds, "I kept them with me babe / I put them with my own / Can't make it all alone / I built my dreams around you." That's real passion. Fuck you, Frosty. I know where I'm going for my Christmas cheer.

8. Speaking of alcohol abuse (and if we mention Shane MacGowan, we're mentioning alcohol abuse), it's now eggnog season. I only get one chance at eggnog a year, so I have to make it good. Every year, I become convinced that I actually like eggnog, a conviction that lasts somewhere between two glasses and four. I can never finish an entire carton of it, with rum or without; I tend to wind up despising it. But for the first glass and a half, eggnog is the greatest nog ever.

9. Apparently, you can get really high off of nutmeg. One of my college friends clued me in on this: apparently, it takes a long time (6-10 hours) for it to hit, and you have to choke down a fair amount of it. It acts as a hallucinagen, and (according to my friend) gives you an absolutely massive headache that far outstrips any of the dubious hallucinagenic benefits. But dude! You can buy it anywhere and no one will suspect a thing!

10. Since we're on the subject, are there other types of nog out there? Baconnog? Beernog? Monosodium-Glutamatenog? Why is eggnog the only one with a holiday? Is there a conspiracy? Is there perhaps a counter-conspiracy going on? A secret society of nog drinkers jealous of the overweening popularity of eggnog? Have they been lacing the world's nutmeg supply with noxious chemicals to ruin everyone's nutmeg/eggnog buzz? Is this what happened to the Rosicrucians?

11. The Rosicrucians celebrate Christmas by waging secret holy war against the massed forces of the Knights Templar and the Freemasons. Mistletoe is a sign that they're about to strike. This is where the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe comes from: it's an acknowledgement that you could potentially die in the coming silent secret holocaust, and you should make every moment count.. Think about that the next time you're trying to slip the tongue to that cute girl from Accounts Payable.

12. I made one of these entries up, because I was having trouble getting to twelve. See if you can guess which one it is.

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the devil and post-modern drunkard				why, i wonder, is my heart full of holes?

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