~ Today’s blog entry is dedicated to my dear friend, Andrew H, for all sorts of things, including reading Stephen King together in sixth grade, and his help with my novel. However, it is especially for the ugly, difficult, tragic, and terribly sad experience of losing a mother. I’m sorry, Andrew. I love you ~
I would like to be a writer. A REAL writer, the kind of writer who other people read, talk about, think about, and even, dare I say it, discuss in depth. Because of such high aspirations, I don’t typically write when I am drunk. And yet…. Ernest Hemingway comes to mind. Stephen King. Dorothy Parker. Edgar Alan Poe. There are so many more, too…Their own alcoholism is not to be celebrated, just as the alcoholism of millions (billions?) of others is not. Alcoholics suffer. Drug addicts suffer. Human beings suffer.
Tonight, I am NOT drunk (I would never!). However, I had one and one half entire glasses of Prosecco. It was delicious, like f-ing delicious. Under normal, I-am-a-human circumstances, this would probably not make me drunk. However, these are NOT normal, I-am-human-circumstances. No, these circumstances are very, very different. In addition to the long-lasting grief that continues to haunt me, these circumstances include two things: 1). I have not eaten nearly enough today, and 2). I have not eaten nearly enough today. There are lots of reasons for this, and neither of them (ha ha) include the possibility that I am, like Parker, Poe, and King an alcoholic. At least I hope not.
The reasons are simple: today I didn’t have any food after breakfast until dinner. Not THAT big of a deal, but we have been out of town, so today’s breakfast included one entire, lonely egg and two puny, gluten-free toasts.I am not sure why, but gluten free bread is very small. It also does not toast well, which is one of its characteristics I really do not appreciate. It doesn’t taste that great, either, but it does the trick. Not a big deal, but dinner, due to circumstances I do not like and cannot control (see the recently shared fact that we have not yet gone shopping), dinner included a modest salad (delicious) and an even-more-modest piece of salmon that we salvaged from the freezer. My husband cooked it, so, yes, it is fair to say that it, too, was delicious. And, yes, it was.
So, that meager offering was dinner. Knowing this feast was going to be all that our dinner consisted of, I felt a little sorry for myself, and cracked into a bottle of Prosecco that was chilling in the refrigerator. The Prosecco was delicious, too.
When I say, “I cracked into,” I actually mean that Jack cracked into it on my behalf, because I don’t like to open wine myself. I am clumsy. I could hurt myself. So, he opened it for me. Yes, me. Just me. He wasn’t going to have any. You can see where this is going, right? So, while I did not have more than one and one half glasses, when that puny alcoholic amount is paired with an entire day’s eating that consists of just one coffee, one egg, cracker sized toast, and one salad, um, let’s just say it leads a girl to drunk writing. You’re welcome. Or, I’m sorry. It’s up to you, really.
“Really, Feisty?!” you may moan. “You haven’t written all year, it’s February, and now, your first entry, waited for with baited breath, and you are, um…drunk?” Yes, my darlings. I am. Kind of. One and one half glasses worth drunk.
I have always been an “easy” drunk, that is, I get drunk easily, with not much fuel required. My late Mom was the same; she could drink just one or two drinks and get pretty buzzed. It was sort of endearing, really. My step-dad called her a cheap drunk. I don’t know; she was drunk, maybe, but she definitely wasn’t cheap. I can’t even begin to assess the whole thing, really, with any kind of wisdom, insight, or keen powers of observation, because, to be honest, I have had very few keen wisdoms or insights since my Mom died on May 20th at 11:23 pm. Plus, I’m drunk.
It’s astonishing to me, because it feels like just a few weeks ago, and just the thought of her death makes me want to throw up or get drunk, except not in that order, and since I don’t really like to throw up, I guess it’s not really a “choice” between those two, which is why we find each other here, me drunken rambling, you reading, and my earphones crackling while I write, arguably drunkenly, and weirdly, while someone is singing “O’ Little Town of Bethlehem” because that’s what came up from my I-tunes library. Weird.
Which brings me back to drunken writers. If I could be any of them: Stephen King, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, (which I can’t as they are not actually alcoholics anymore, because they are DEAD–except for King, thank God). If I could be any one of them, I would definitely, definitely want to be Poe. He was so dark, weird, and absolutely tragic. I loved him. When I was in sixth grade, middle school, etc., Stephen King and Edgar Alan Poe were my very favorites. (Weird kid, much? Yes, thank you for asking.) I love the dark, the scary, the unexpected and strange. Those two gentlemen know more than a thing or two, because: Yes, life is scary; yes, life is dark. And then you die.
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