Good 'n Drunk

My father died one year ago this last Thursday.

Of medical malfeasance, stupidity, arrogance, and petty spite.

Of pride, and greed, and the need for people to justify their inflated opinions of themselves.

Of the poverty of an economically depressed area.

Of a life of long work and hard use.

Of doing the right thing.


And on the one year anniversary of his death I worked a normal shift.

It's been a short year (in spite of the fact that I've spent it, and more, alone).

Talked to the same six people I always talk to on Thursday.


And tonight, I'm getting good and drunk.

Because my father taught me many things.

Duty, and pragmatism, and the importance of taking care of what is necessary (family, work, debt, etc.)  before seeing to personal comfort (friendship, love, etc.)

And I remember after I graduated from college with my first degree (in criminal psychology of all things).  He asked me if I'd found what I was looking for.  And he asked me if I could understand how some people could do the things they do in the world.  (and I told him the truth.  The truly horrible among us do what they do because they can... Same answer that my department head had apparently given when he asked that same question.  And an answer that he already knew from long years of practical experience)

But tonight his lessons on loss run strong in my veins.

Along with about a quart of 1800 silver.

I'll probably read this later and realize it doesn't make sense, but I refuse to punch it up.
I refuse to correct it.
Because it's probably the only truly honest thing I've written in weeks.

(In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas, and all that)


And because tonight I need to be out of control.

And because, as someone who was not my father once told me, self control is for those who can't control others.

And I think I either need to lose control a little,

or become someone much worse.

When I've spent three decades learning not to be.



So it's good to get good 'n drunk...

Lord spare us all the horrors of sobriety.

Decades in Mid-May showers

So a couple weeks back I took my first non-emergency, non-unemployment, non-illness, non-family death week off in twenty years  (almost twenty years exactly).

I flew on a plane (something I had also not done in twenty years, almost exactly).

Spent the better part of a week with a friend who I hadn't seen (in almost twenty years, exactly).


And for a few brief days it was like being young again.


Sitting around, smoking and joking, watching movies, flirting.

Pretending that we were both still in our late teens/early twenties, and that the world wasn't the horror show that we both know it to be now.

Pretending that neither of us had lived through the last two decades.

Mapping our similarities, even after so many many years.

Noting the differences, in ourselves and in each other.

Trading our stories.

Our bad habits and noble dreams.

Big wins and close calls, missed chances and irrecoverable loves, victories and failures, persistence and strength and joy and deep personal loss.

Probably the best platonic week I've had in over a decade.

Funny how time can be at times.

Hope we can do it again in twenty years.