Echoes from the post modernist confessional booth.

It occurs to me that I like a life of excess.

When I eat I like food that has real flavor,
I like backwoods cigars once in a while,
when I regularly smoked tobacco I smoked home rolls,
I drink Irish whiskey,
I like dark beer,
I like heavy ale,
I like rich pilsner,
I like my lovers both gentle and passionate,
I relish spicy food,
on the rare occasion that I have a cup of coffee I like it dark as midnight,
coffee so thick the fork stands up,
or with bushmills and cream and sugar,
and more bushmills.

I like to stand in the light drizzle in the dark,
smoking a foul smelling cigar with a wonderful taste,
drinking Pendeltons out of a ceramic steel cup,
watching cars on the slick asphalt,
listening to the wind in the trees,
and the coyote's.

When I'm happy I'm very happy.
When I'm sad, I'm extremely sad.
When I love, I love in abundance.
When I hate, I hate with every fiber of my being,
and when I feel nothing, I truly feel nothing.

I often wonder if that's why I resent being just another faceless mindless drone working a pointless, soul crushing, menial job.

I guess it must have something to do with the men in my family.

We tend to die young in my family.

My father is 60,
he faces every day as if it were his last,
because in reality it very well could be.

His father died in his late 60's,
and his father's father died at 42.

My mothers father died when she was 28,
he was in his mid 60's,
an ex-marine,
ex-cop,
in pretty good shape.

We all die young,
so I guess its almost natural to want the excess in life.

I suppose I could watch my diet,
exercise more regularly,
do more cardio,
eat bland tasteless food and abstain from any and all sinful entertainments.

But what point is there in a life never lived?

If I die at 60,
reeking of strong drink and good cigars,
in the arms of a passionate lover (or two);
is my life any worse than it would be if I did all the "right" things and lived to 65 and died with a tube up my nose and spent my last five years in a sterile hospital room?

In the end I guess it really is a choice between quality and quantity.

I suppose I should apologize to the world in general for this,
but I'm really unsure as to why.