I went running this morning. As I turned down a dark avenue lined with trees, I felt a dry rain patter on my face. It was strange, but I forgot about it until I got home and looked in the mirror. There were four dead gnats stuck to my face. I was the semi hurtling down their highway at night.

As I stumbled back into my building after my run, I said hello to my neighbor, who was outside smoking. Actually, he’d been outside smoking when I left, too, an hour earlier. He is an otherwise normal, friendly, good-humored man who smokes like a freaking chimney and doesn’t seem to sleep. When I kept more erratic hours I would come upon him smoking in the stairwells in the middle of the night. He seemed both apologetic and helpless to explain himself. I don’t know why he doesn’t smoke in his apartment. Maybe he does.

Anyway, as I stumbled up after my run, sweaty and quietly exuberant, it seemed he looked at me and my healthiness kind of wistfully. I may have imagined it. Either way, I wanted to tell him, “No, dude, it’s just a phase. I’m not really like this. I’m sure I’ll be sucking on the bottle again before you know it. Don’t feel bad.”

Now, I don’t really believe that, but I’ve been sensitive lately to how my new lifestyle might appear to others. A friend recently told me I was “Straight Edge now.” I kind of spazzed. He was sort of joking, and probably doesn’t know any more about Straight Edge than I do, but I feel what I am doing is about the furthest thing from Straight Edge. I still appreciate intoxication as a concept and find it heartening to see it in others. I still have treasured memories of being excessively fucked up. I am just not doing it right now, and not anytime real soon either.

I recently read an interview with popular recording artist Moby. He was talking about how he used to have a big thing about not drinking and not doing drugs. Then something made him think about why, and he realized that the only reason he didn’t drink or do drugs was because it allowed him to feel like he was better than people who did. So, disgusted with his own self-righteousness, he started drinking and doing drugs and found out he really liked it. I never was that interested in Moby before but after reading that I feel a fondness for him.

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