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Dec 28, 2004
Dec 27, 2004

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Jan 2002 - Dec 2004

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Reading:

Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenriech

(I liked this, although I didn't think it was exactly a shocking expose. I will never again hire a cleaning service, though - I felt kind of shitty about it before, but now? No way.)

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival, Bernd Heinrich

(This was good, really interesting and well-written. Did you know bears hibernate - and don't eat - for seven months?)

Batman: Year One , Frank Miller

Pattern Recognition, William Gibson


Check out :

Scientific data on the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.


Artifact:

Fog on Lake Washington

Happy New Year! Do not mock my fancy hat.


Journal links:

Amalah
Ampersand
BitchyPoo
Dana
Darn-Tootin'
Dooce
Drowning13

Ejshea
Evany

Feng
Fonticulus

Haze
Internet Persona
Invinciblegirl!
LadeeLeroy
Mimi Smartypants

Miss Doxie
Mrs. Roboto
Pamie
Peachy Keen
Perpetual Blonde
Pineapple Girl
Pound
Sarah Hepola
Scott Dierdorf
Subsequent Events
TranceJen
Uncle Bob

Velcrometer
Weetabix

December 31, 2004

Yesterday I learned I can stay the entire day in bed, and I do mean the entire day - with breaks only for food (god knows I wouldn't want to skip a meal, even when inanimate) and an ill-advised viewing of Bourne Supremacy (JB's Netflix pick, and it's really too bad that watching a Sandra Bullock movie would be just as much torture for me as it would be for him, because I OWE HIM ONE). I finished one book, zipped through another, and got about halfway through a third before succumbing to eyestrain at midnight or so. So refreshing! In a grossly unhealthy kind of way.

I could honestly do the same thing today, but JB and I have plans for the evening and I guess I can't go out in pajama bottoms, much as I might like to. We're going to a comedy club, then dinner - dinner at TEN THIRTY, my god, that's typically when I'm nodding off over my bedtime reading material and JB is wrapping up his last round of Halo Live - and I'm hoping it's a good time. We could both use a good time, here on the ass-end of 2004.

This will be the first New Year's Eve in, well, I don't know exactly how long but let's say easily more than 10 years, that I won't be drinking. It certainly will be my first time going to a comedy club without ordering at least five overpriced drinks.

On the plus side, tomorrow will be a hangover-free New Year's Day.

It's been about six months now since the day I agreed that I had a problem and needed to stop. I won't lie and tell you that I haven't made mistakes since then, because I have. It's hard, harder than I ever would have guessed.

For me, drinking has become something like an abusive relationship, where you know it's going to hurt you to go back but you just can't imagine your life without it. Where you know the good times are always outweighed by the bad but you can't see clear, you can't push it aside because somehow, this thing has entwined itself in you so deeply, it's telling you that you'll feel so much better if you just give in, and even though you always feel worse, saying no never gets any easier.

I'll tell you something that I didn't expect, is the jealousy I feel when I see other people drinking. I feel sorry for myself, as disgusting as that is. Why can they handle it, and not me? How did I let myself get to the point where I can't order a glass of wine with dinner, I can't have a cold Pacifico in my backyard on a hot summer day, I can't even toast with champagne at midnight?

I write those words and I feel this intense sense of loss, I feel prickly-eyed and pitiful, and here I am thinking about this damaging thing in my life, this thing that got too big for me to handle, and it's not just an innocent beer on a sunny day because who am I kidding, it's never one beer.

Sitting around tallying up all the occasions where alcohol will no longer be present in my life (and romanticizing it all, of course - what arguments? what headaches?) does no good, I can tell you that. It's like sitting around wondering however you will get by without that boyfriend who bloodies your nose and leaves you with purple rings around your eyes, because your self-esteem is so shot you live for those brief moments that he makes you happy.

They say staying sober is easier than getting sober. I don't know if that's true or not - what does it mean to get sober? I don't think it means not drinking for a month, or even six months. Maybe it means being able to resist, choosing not to drink, not because your husband wants you to or because you're taking drugs that keep you from drinking. Looking at a glass and thinking, no. Maybe someday it can even mean looking at the glass and not having any desire for its contents.

That's what I hope to learn in 2005, I guess. To not want the glass.

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