Driving home from the bookstore proud of my purchases, which included Stephen Dixon's newest,
I was thinking about the drinking days. The peak of my best (or
worst) drinking was ten years ago just after my first wife left
me. I had been a heavy drinker for about three or four years at
that point, but it was of the controlled variety, usually consisted of
putting down a twelve pack of cheap beer a night, mostly at home,
mostly after my wife had gone to bed. When she left, I no longer
had that anchor that kept my drunken boat from drifting into rough
waters. Now, ten years later, it's interesting to see that my
life has not only changed because of the years and maturity that come
with them, but also because I'm no longer dependent on something that
was keeping me from enjoying life. Just for the hell of it,
here's a comparison of the me then vs. the me now:
Drink
Then: Beer, usually the cheapest I could find. Sometimes I would warm up with a shot or four of vodka.
Now: Coffee, chased with water. Tonight, I'm indulging in a latte from The Coffee Bean.
Setting
Then: I preferred the dirtiest dive bar I
could find, usually the ones that had good drink specials such as the
$5 beer buffet, which basically meant that you could drink all you
wanted of the watered down tap Natural Life between the hours of 10 and
midnight.
Now: My desk in my apartment two thousand miles from those dive bars.
Music
Then: Whatever was playing on the bar's
jukebox. If I could spare a few quarters, I'd choose some Archers
of Loaf, Replacements, Halo Benders, Polvo. Or Tom Waits.
You can never go wrong with Tom Waits, who, I believe, has been sober
for over a decade.
Now: Johnny Cash on CMT, his concert at San Quentin. Otherwise, it would be iTunes on shuffle or KEXP streaming.
Job
Then: Bartending at the dive bar. I was
paid only with the measly tips, usually a bunch of nickels and dimes,
and the occasional pill that would make my night if I could figure out
what it was and it turned out not to be birth control or Tylenol.
Now:
Comfy corporate. Not the ideal job, but pays the rent and buys me
books and allows my wife to fund the neighbors who have yard sales.
Worst Injury
Then: One night while staying with a
girl I had recently met, in her apartment that she had just moved in to,
I woke up in the middle of the night, drunk on way too many shots of
vodka that the girl had bought for me, and on the way to the bathroom,
I tripped over a box. The next thing I know, I awoke to her
screaming, "Oh my fucking god what happened" as she stared at me.
I realized I couldn't lift my head. Looking down at my t shirt, I
noticed the blood. Not just on me but all over the wooden floors
in her living room. Apparently, I'd fallen into something, hit
the top of my nose, broke it in two, and because of the pain--and the
vodka--had passed out. Ended up with two black eyes and the fifth
broken nose of my life, and soon enough, the girl would tell me that
she wasn't really interested in "that kind" of relationship.
Now: Headaches.
Of course, I miss it. This latte is damn good though.
